I am shamelessly stealing this idea from Kate Fucking Harding, who is totally riffing off Sady Fucking Doyle, because they are–and it is–so fucking awesome.
First, go peruse those links. Then come back here and brag on yourself. What do you do really, really fucking well? Name the thing you’re the best at. Identify two or three or ten things that you seriously OWN. Use the word “fucking” if you like, but don’t feel obliged (unless swearing is one of those things you do so fucking well).
1. I am a fucking great teacher. I’m smart and funny and relevant and tough. You would be lucky to have me for a class.
2. I am a serious badass at financial management. That doesn’t mean I’m wealthy, far from it; I’m living below the poverty line, but I have my shit together. I live within my means, I have no debt, I know where all my cash goes, and I still manage to save a little bit.
3. I am an unapologetic, in-yer-face feminist. Every fucking day, everywhere I go.
Now you.
You totally made my day, Ph.Dork.
I am such a fucking awesome yogi I can do poses that make other yogis cry from fucking envy although they never would, cuz, it’s not fucking yogic to do that. But I get off on that too cuz I am so fucking competitive.
My best compliments ever where when two really smart people I admire both said independently that I am the most interesting person they know. DAMN STRAIGHT I am.
1. I am really fucking good at shutting someone down with only a look. I promise that I use this talent for good and not evil (most of the time.)
2. I am a badass at calling my male friends out on their bullshit. Not 20 minutes ago, I stopped my friend from mansplaining and taught him not to do so in the future.
3. I’m a fucking great medical student. I stay on top of my shit, volunteer at a suicide hotline every weekend, tutor middle schoolers twice a week and manage to have a fabulous group of friends and a kick-ass long distance boyfriend.
I really needed that, you guys. This weekend is going to be a beast, and I was in desperate need of an ego boost. Have a great weekend, everyone!!
(I’m going to use the word fucking, because I love typing it SO much, even though I almost never say it.)
1. I’m a fucking good writer. I’ve written professionally, academically, and blog-ically (hey, it goes), and I’m good at it. I can write whatever needs to be written in less time than allotted and need next to no editing. This week my blog was featured on the front page of WordPress, and I couldn’t be prouder. Next up, I’m going to hammer out a final paper for the grad class I’m taking, and by God, I WILL get an A on it.
2. I’m fucking good in the kitchen. I’ve been cooking for almost 4 years, and I’ve discovered that I love it and I rock at it. I proved my mettle when I signed up for a CSA that basically turned into a weekly Iron Chef battle that pitted me against a giant box of veggies each week for 12 weeks, and I’m about to start a new season on Tuesday. Those rutabagas are going DOWN.
3. I’m a fucking good partner. I work hard on my relationship, and it pays off.
Rodriguez– I love that even super awesome yogis are competitive about it. I’m a baby beginner at yoga, and I’m sooooo competitive, and it’s probably not very yogic but it drives me to keep going and keep trying. This week I moved to an advanced version of a pose that once gave me a lot of trouble and I’m so proud of myself!
1. I do not take shit off of anyone. I can fucking stand up for myself and anyone else who needs it. I am not apologetic or passive in the presence of assweasels, Republicans or chauvinists.
2. I am fucking great at my job. In fact, I’m so fucking great at it, I was one of the youngest people in the business to have my job title. My boss and colleagues all respect the shit out of me.
3. I am a really fucking loyal friend and I have a shitload of awesome fucking friends, both IRL and on the interwebs (including all of y’all reading this).
(Also, I fucking love the f-word).
I am a fucking AWESOME writer of poems and creative prose. I know what I’m doing on the page. I have a great grasp of imagery and detail, and I know how to manipulate my audience’s emotions. Also, I make the best fucking vanilla cookies you’ve ever tasted.
God, that felt good. Weird, but good.
I’m Amy fucking RealName and I am so fucking proud to be totally fucking awesome at kicking down the door of the patriarchy in my everyday life.
I’m also fucking awesome at making people laugh.
I also fucking rock at knowing all sorts of absolutely useless trivia.
I fucking owned being a nonprofit program manager, so fucking hard that within three years I went from being an intern to managing an entire program that raised over half a million fucking dollars. Then I decided to own my own fucking life and leave the grown-up job behind. Maude help me, it’s been a struggle, but I’m making it.
Fuck yeah, I think women need to be more upfront about being fucking awesome.
1. I fucking OWN at any kind of nerdy trivia game. In my senior year of high school I was the top female Scholastic Bowl player in the state of Illinois (and among the top ten players, period) out of a pool of thousands, and the prior year I was state champion in what can be called a grammar-fascist contest—it’s more complicated than that really, but it doesn’t matter. Admittedly it’s one of the perks of being autistic (oh yeah) but I have a fucking encyclopedic memory when it comes to English lit and history, and especially geography and pop culture. I fucking swear that I’m going to break Ken Jennings’ Jeopardy record one day. Also, I can and will kick your ass at Scrabble, since I’ve got a fucking huge vocabulary.
2. Putain, je parle français si bien. Je l’avais étudié depuis 6 ans maintenant, et quand je suis allée en France il y a 2 ans, presque tout le monde m’a dit que j’ai un accent français excellent. Sacrée merde, même ici à New York quelques personnes m’ont demandé si je suis française quand je leur parle. Je suis perfectionniste en français aussi fortement qu’en anglais, et je sais utiliser le subjonctif correctement—et je veux que tout le monde apprenne ça! (MDR, tu vois ce que j’y ai fait?
) Et putain, la langue française est si belle et si amusante de parler que tout le monde doit l’apprendre pour qu’ils puissent être aussi sophistiqués avec leurs langages que moi, hahaha.
3. I’m really fucking good at typing with my eyes closed! I did this all the time when I was in an internship at the Senate office of Majority Whip Dick Durbin and I needed time to kill, and I would do this to amuse myself. I’m not shy at all about showing this off, and if I know a piece well enough, I can play the piano with my eyes closed, too. (I know there’s no way of proving this, especially since I corrected some of the spacing errors, but I can assure you that I types all this with my eyes closed, and without a single misspelled word.
(ARGH, I wrote “types” instead of “typed,” and I forgot to close the parentheses. But really, apart from that, I really really love typing with my eyes closed, and aside from a few naturally human flaws, I fucking rock at it.)
I love all the trivia geeks. I’m having dreams of forming some kind of awesome Harpies Quiz Bowl team and taking over the world of trivia.
I’m fucking great at parallel parking.
I, too, was a Scholar Bowl/Knowledge Master UberNerd. And I (and my team) fucking kicked ass at it.
SMC: You’re a rock star for beagles. You save lives. You fucking rock.
I’m MKFuckingP, and I can review a movie or a play so damn well its DIRECTOR won’t have read as much into it as I do. I can sing the hell out of a broadway standard and accompany myself on the piano. I swim well, I talk fast, I pick up languages quickly, I’m a good kisser and I have four fucking awesome tattoos.
I sent that whole fucking series of posts to my pretty fucking rad feminist brother, to warn him of the perils of mansplaining.
All you bitches are so fucking awesome it’s almost making me cry!
cat you are fucking great at cursing in french! ¡More foreign language cursing, coño!
I am incredibly fucking good at systematically picking apart and demolishing bad arguments. Especially bad arguments made by smug, entitled men. I am so fucking good at this that I have a new policy of obstaining from getting into arguments on political and social issues at the bar, because it just hurts people’s feelings and crushes their ego when I calmly and quickly demolish their argument and then go back to drinking my whiskey.
And speaking of drinking whiskey – I’m fucking good at drinking, and can drink most men under the table. I’ve also called a moratorium on that particular activity (the drinking men under the table, not drinking in general) for obvious reasons. But I still fucking own it.
Finally, I’m fucking good at making sock monkeys. I make sock monkeys for Christmas and birthday and baby shower gifts, and just because there should be more fucking sock monkeys in the world.
Oh my god, just what I needed today. It’s been a hectic, crazy, wallow-in-my-own-misery week, and PhDork is just the doctor I needed.
I am fucking awesome at copy editing. I LOVE IT! And I was completely self taught. I had an internship at a major daily newspaper during my senior year of college, and I fucking rocked it. In fact, I’m really fucking good at working. Just, working. Doing my job well and being professional and showing up on time dressed appropriately and getting paid for it. And for a liberal arts grad who jokes about how my hippie college doesn’t give people marketable skills or prepare them for the real world, I am fucking rocking the real world.
Also, I am fucking hilarious. One of my friends told me he thought I was at my funniest when I’m being snarky, and it is true. I am at my best when I am ripping into powerful and self-important people who deserve it, and basically being a sarcastic bitch.
Reading about how fucking badass all y’all are makes me wish Harpyness had an affiliated bar. Where we could all go after a hard day and drink something delicious and eat fried cheese and listen to each other be awesome.
@Cait: Agreed. We could also have some quiz bowl games because apparently we are all fucking awesome at trivia. Although I am so fucking awesome at trivia that I’d probably get all competitive with other people’s awesomeness and have to be sedated with extra fried cheese.
I’m fucking Occam and I’m a teacher and a learner. I assimilate immense amounts of information and make a well-considered argument in short order. I have great intuition and a great memory, and these allow me to see the connections between different subjects. I use these skills to be an advocate for low income women in my state until I go back to being a lawyer at the end of the year.
I’m a badass teacher. When I was teaching standardized tests, I commanded rooms full of people between the ages of 13 and 50 and we all had a great time because I’m informative and funny and I don’t stand for nonsense in my classroom, so if you’re not here to learn then gtfo.
I’m a contralto; how awesome is that! I can sing opera in my low, velvety voice!
I’m fucking awesome because my body is my most obvious feminist project. I’m over 6 feet tall and a former rower, and I’m strong like whoa because I lift weights all the time. I outweigh my husband by 50 lbs, and I’m 2 inches taller. I kicked his ass at circuit training class last week. And often I wear heels just to be able to intimidate assholes and I love it.
I am not having a day where I feel I can answer this post very well, but I am a fucking good cat mom?
I’m smart and motivated and constitutionally incapable of backing down from anything. I’ll tell you differently in person, but you know what? I think that makes me pretty fucking awesome.
Also, I stared at this post for an hour, and hitting the submit button feels pretty damn liberating!
My name is Plum-fucking-Pie and I am proud to come from a long line of women who will not sit still and shut up. My great-grandmother campaigned for the fucking vote, while I have written parts of actual laws which people have to obey.
I am brilliant at cooking. I can make a double-chocolate-banana-caramelised-pecan blondie that one of my best fucking friends described as ‘a perfect cake’. I am also brilliant at cooking lentils. This is because I am a well-balanced bitch and people call me ‘wise’ all the fucking time.
I can spot an awesome vintage handbag at 20 paces and I can make almost anyone laugh.
@PSoul: You have fucking awesome analytical skillz. You can break shit down in writing like nobody’s business.
Your apartment fucking rocks. Your cat fucking rocks (even though I’m a little scared of her). Your hair is the most beautiful thick shiny fucking hair in all of New York City. Your ambition and all the awesome things you are planning for your life fucking rock. And the fact that you’re actually DOING those things when so many other people would be to scared to do them is FUCKING AWESOME.
Pilgrim Soul, I read your stuff and I can attest to the fact that you are fucking awesome.
In fact, this website is the fucking business.
@Cat – That was some francophile badassery, right there.
1. I am a really fucking good engineer. I am getting a dean’s fellowship from the grad school I’m going to in the fall. For my senior project, I came up with an incredibly awesome idea to get more energy out of a certain kind of environmentally-friendly, high energy density battery and I’m doing my final test right now and if it works I’m going to patent it. I am the only woman in my college’s chapter of the engineering honor’s society, which means I managed to be in the top 1/5 of my class while completing two minors (chemistry and French), doing extracurriculars, *and* having a social life.
2. I am a really good cook. I make some delicious food. I am imaginative and good at multitasking in the kitchen and I pick up techniques really quickly.
3. I am great at taking care of cats — cats love me and I luuuurve them.
4. I am a really fucking good girlfriend. My first boyfriend and I just celebrated our two-year anniversary. I am very proud both of how happy I make him and how happy I have allowed him to make me.
5. I can fucking break it down on the dance floor, for reals.
6. I was the president of our pro-choice group for the past two years and just managed to ensure that the patient escorting program that I’ve run since I was a sophomore will continue once I’m gone!
Harpies, I love you all and this is the most awesome website on the internets, as far as I’m concerned.
Ditto to Cait on the Harpy bar.
This is kind of a roundabout one, but I am fucking brilliant at recognising when I am being a dick. Which I think is a gift.
Sorry, I’m British. I’m genetically incapable of doing this. Well done, you lot, though.
Diziet_Sma is the fucking greatest stiff upper lip!
Well, I am usually really fucking good at not being very nice to myself, so this is a challenge. BUT.
I am a good fucking friend. I care about the friends in my life more than most people care about their partners, and I’d lay down in fucking traffic with them if they needed it.
I am an amazing fucking overachiever. I’m completing my PhD early while working two volunteer jobs and writing two fucking blogs. I write the shizz out of some blog posts and articles and dissertation chapters everyday, even though there’s not really a tangible reward most of the time, and then volunteer at a queer resource center and DV shelter every week, just because I think it’s fucking important.
And you know what else? I’m a fucking incredible partner, moving to a foreign country to support my manpanion in his dreams while still tele-commuting to the US, and cooking the shit out of some incredible food.
Also, thanks Harpies, I’d cook the shit out of some fucking good food for you if you could come to my place tonight!
I am Fucking kicking the ass of my OCD (aka fucking Brenda) without medication and did most of the fucking work myself as it took fucking months to get an appointment.
I beat my fucking dyslexia and now you can barely tell I ever fucking had it.
I have fucking strong legs, when I took kick boxing lessons every kick was a fucking dangerous kick.
I am fucking good at science, I have even had flashes of fucking brilliance when I work out the answer just my sub-consciouse. And I can rip appart a psudo-evolutionary psychology theory in seconds.
I am fucking brilliant at knowing loads of stuff about the TV shows and books I love. I can even come up with fucking brilliant plots that would have been much better than the original.
I am fucking smart and funny.
I am a fucking good cat mother.
My hair is fucking awesome.
Diziet_Sma is fucking awesome at being modest!
I am fucking brave. I am fucking smart. I have a a huge heart. I am becoming a fine writer. And I taught myself to paint pictures that others have thought were painted by professional artists.
@all posters: You’re all f’ing awesome and I love reading your posts!
@Cat: bien parle (sorry, don’t know how to do an accent)!
@Ruth
That is fucking awesome. We’re skimming the surface of psychiatry in med school right now, and that’s fucking amazing that you’ve been able to deal with your OCD. You are the fucking shit.
1) Y’all are making me cry tears of joy! Seriously. You ladies fucking rock.
2) PSoul – you are fucking brilliant. Seriously.
3) BeckySharper – I really wish I could just make you materialize by my side when I need a Bitch!
4) We NEED a Harpy pub! How else are we going to fund the Harpy Retirement Home?
5) We can haz pictures of PSoul’s glorious locks plz?!
6) I am Lucy La Fucking Chica and at 24 years old I started a weekly fucking community newspaper. We published for 10 years, won 27 press association awards and for most of that time it was just me and my (now-ex) husband. I can fucking report, investigate, write, edit, photograph and layout the entire contents of a fucking newspaper, while answering the phone, typing obits and solving IT issues. Unfortunately, due to some boneheaded (male) business partners, who treated me like a fucking clerk, I left the paper in 2005 only to watch it die predictably 12 months later (they were the $ – I was the talent). HOWEVER, I am the only fucking person who ever made a dime on the whole venture, due to my kick-ass negotiating skills (and foresight). Oh, and I’ve never taken a journalism class in my life. I fucking ROCK at learning by doing. I’m also a great fucking friend and am pretty fucking funny, too.
Forgot to add: Thanks, PhDork – reading all the comments, and submitting my own, was just what I needed. Also – you sound like an awesome fucking teacher!
I too am a fucking awesome teacher. Within the next couple weeks I expect to get notified of the super high pass rate of my students on their high school exit exams. I make my students feel safe and loved. They share all their shit with me in their journals, and I have seen the evidence of my comments’ positive effects in their lives. Plus I do my best to dismantle their racist, heteronormative bullshit on a daily basis. I have two fucking awesome classroom rules: Don’t start none, won’t be none & Check yourself before you wreck yourself.
I’m a fucking great mom. My kid is, like, way smart and sweet and strong.
I’m am fucking good at opting out of wasteful consumerism. I’m all about freecycle, bookmooch, garage sales, and thrift stores with outreach programs. When I do shop new, it’s usually to support local indie businesses.
I fucking love you Harpies! You’re all such fucking badasses, and I am daily inspired by you to keep being fucking awesome.
This is amazing to read.
@rodriguez & BeckySharper: Ha, ha, cheers! You are both fucking awesome, full stop. Just to clarify – I know I fucking rock at some things, there is just no way I can ever SAY it. But I’m loving reading about what a talented bunch all y’all are!
I’m Katharsis, and I am fucking late to the party. Come to think of it, I’m fucking great at being late to the party but still getting down.
The Harpy community is fucking great and you all are fucking amazing and I am fucking thrilled to be a new part of it.
I am fucking smart. I am a successful academician, observant and perceptive. I LOVE to learn and pick up information really quickly.
I am a fucking great friend and family member. I am kind, generous, loving, and loyal. I adore my friends and family and would do anything for them.
I am fucking passionate. When I care about something, I put all of myself into my passion. I tend not to have lukewarm feelings about much so when I am invested in something, I’m all in.
I fucking love reading this blog and the comments. You are all smart, funny, incredible people and I am fucking excited to be able to participate even more.
I’ll cross-post from Shapely Prose –
I’m Nicole fucking viajera (real last name not used online), and I’m fucking good at coming up w/ exciting research and writing grants. I’ve brought in $40,000 of research funding so far in the 5 years of my PhD, in a field that’s not exactly known for bringing in lots of money. Most other students in my field are thrilled if they bring in a couple thou.
I’m also pretty fucking good at teaching and mentoring students.
In my personal life, I’m a damn good cook, and a good friend – I take good care of those I care about.
I know I am fucking late here, but I’m a fucking awesome professional critic who met my review deadline even though I was in serious pain due to sciatica earlier this week. Thank goodness for the ice pack under my left buttcheek, my awesome laptop and multiple pillows. I couldn’t have done it without them!
This is the best fucking thing I’ve ever read on the internet.
I am Cimorene and I’m a good fucking dog mom. I take my dog to the dog park several times a week, I took him to a personal trainer and when that didn’t work I trained him myself, and even though he is a doggie basketcase due to an evil fuckface who abused him before he was my dog, he is now a (generally) well behaved dog who loves me a lot. And my training was so fucking good that after I first got him if he saw a dog on the street, in a car, or through the window of my second story apartment, he would freak out and try to kill it so I was frequently forced to wrastle him to the ground even in 4 feet of snow, but today we spent 35 fucking minutes at the dog park with a bunch of other dogs (including some persistent puppies who wanted to play with him) and he didn’t want to kill anybody. I am so fucking proud of working with this amazing animal, saving him from either the pound or being with someone who couldn’t have handled all his shit, and he fucking changed my life.
I am fucking smart. I am smart as shit, y’all. Even though sometimes I feel crazy and like all my academic success is based on my parents’ decision to send me to private school when I was 10, that is only my insecure crazy taking over my brain. I am about to finish my MA and my thesis topic is fucking radical and I managed to combine my interest in Shakespeare, feminism, and the internet. And I got into four PhD programs for next year and had a fucking choice of where to go, and they all offered me funding, and I will be going to a fucking Ivy League university next year to get my PhD, and I will be paid just to take classes, and I’m so fucking excited and also pretty fucking shocked.
And I, like many Harpies, am fucking awesome at being in a relationship. My relationship with my partner is the envy of all my friends, I’m dating a guy who’s pretty much a unicorn-man. And more importantly, I’m fucking awesome at being in a feminist relationship. Several times in the past few months he’s made reference to how my feminism has affected his life. I fucking taught him about rape culture, and the truly crowning moment of my personal life happened two days ago when he told me that he saw two guys and a girl who were obviously friends goofing around, and one of the (large) guys picked up the girl and wouldn’t put her down even though she kept telling him to let her go. And my partner walked past this scene and was annoyed, then walked like 20 feet, turned around, came back and told the guy to put her down. And when he was all, “we’re all friends, it’s no big deal,” my partner said, “it is a big deal, it makes me uncomfortable to see a large man physically control and constrain a smaller woman, so put her down now,” and the kid did it. And then (this is the part I’m most proud of) he told me that since he started dating me and reading the feminist websites I directed him to, he can no longer abide the things that he used to recognize as fucked up and sexist. But whereas he used to just let it go and ignore it, because his natural aversion to confrontation was stronger than his disgust with said sexism, now it’s harder for him to ignore it than to confront it, and if he witnesses displays of sexism he feels compelled to confront it or he’ll be thinking about it all day. The man is seriously confrontation-averse, so for his feminist-friendly impulses to top his reluctance to act is a huge deal, and he credited me and, to a lesser extent, the media I directed him to, as the reasons for this change. I am so fucking proud of him, and so fucking proud of myself for raising his consciousness like this.
Finally, I am a good fucking person. I can’t lie, or cheat, or break promises, or leave bad tips. I am fucking constitutionally incapable of lying, and if I tell someone I’ll do something, I’ll do it. And I work as hard as I fucking can to live within my feminist principles and be the change I want to see in the world, and to secretly make all the women in my life surprise feminists, like by telling my mom that she’s not crazy (when she’s not) and by using feminist rhetoric around my non/anti-feminist female family members in order to make them feel like their emotions aren’t gross, or that they don’t need to worry about the size of their thighs, or that when they’re frustrated by the men in their lives that it’s ok to be frustrated and to not just ignore it in order to be a good wife/daughter/girlfriend.
And Pilgrim Soul, you fucking rock. Your name is well known in my household, because my partner and I have had multiple conversations in which the phrase “Pilgrim Soul is fucking awesome” (or bad-ass or smart or hilarious) gets uttered. Your posts are always thoughtful and, more to the point, thought provoking. And you are a fucking brilliant writer.
This is the best fucking thread I’ve read in quite a long fucking time
I know I’m late, sorry y’allllss but here I go!
I’m really good at making up hypothetical situations as “punchlines”, consequently making people laugh their asses off. (Does that make sense?)
I also fucking rock at (urban) homesteading-type activities: cooking, baking, sewing, knitting, crochet, gardening. These abilities are all the more amazing because I’ve had no role models/mentors/teachers to guide me…it’s all completely self-taught!
I’m apparently really good at surrounding myself with tasteful and simple yet adorable things. People comment on my measuring cups, tote bags, post-it notes, art on my walls, blah blah blah….it comes naturally
And as you may have gathered from the above, I have recently started rocking at owning my stereotypically-feminine side as well as my badass-feminine side. The high-GPA-earning lass in the tailored vintage dress who will call someone out on their fucking mansplaining in front of the whole damn class if she needs to.
And also, speaking of high GPAs, I have a 3.94 with my double major in two east Asian languages. I’m going to study Chinese at Taipei’s best university this year on my own dolla dolla bills y’all.
Whoa. Done!
And Diziet_Sma, I definitely understand…I’m half English and damn, it was hard to type the above…until I got going and then it was easy
After hearing about what fucking awesome cooks all the Harpies are, I’ve stopped wishing along for a Harpy bar. Now I want a fucking Harpy potluck (with lots of fucking booze).
This is going to be hard, but:
- I’m fucking amazing at thinking for myself: I don’t conform to ideas or things just because it’s always been done or because everyone does it.
- I’m fucking great at interviews – I scored an amazing job that’s 3 levels higher on the corporate ladder than my last job and I’m learning so fast that I already have more responsibilities than the veterans.
- I’m fucking musical – I have an ‘internal iPod’ and can think of and recall any type of music as I please and keep myself occupied without the need for a real iPod.
- I’m fucking great at picturing theoretical, abstract things: I can out-write and out-think people in literary, music, film theories and the like.
- Lastly, I’m a fucking good feminist, an amazing friend, a great partner (or I try to be) in a feminist relationship and a fucking great lover of food.
Yay!
this is hard for me to do because my years of depression make me think that i’m not good at anything, but here goes:
i’m fucking good at my job. i hate it with a fucking passion, but i’m good at being thorough and checking behind myself to make sure i did it right. i’ve been given tasks in other departments because everyone has so much fucking work and not enough fucking time.
i’m fucking good at writing, though i don’t fucking do it enough. i write poetry, but even in school i could whip out a paper in a fairly fucking short time and it would be fucking GOOD.
i’m fucking good at singing. i love me some fucking karaoke. i’m also becoming fucking good at gardening. this is my first year growing shit and i’m fucking excited about it.
i’m also fucking great at swearing. i love swearing so fucking much that i’m so glad i don’t have children so i don’t have to watch my fucking dirty mouth around them.