I’ve been watching horror movies since elementary school and exposed to scary things in general like haunted house attractions since I was in preschool, so needless to say I’m pretty desensitized after a couple decades. The last horror movie I watched that genuinely freaked me out was Terrifier 2, and that’s partly because I watched it on pain meds while recovering from surgery.
I’m looking for something I can watch that’ll really startle and/or freak me out, but also aren’t the same five or six movies I already watch on a regular basis.

• My favorite horror sub-genres are supernatural, sci-fi, and slashers. Some that I watch regularly include: Aliens, The Conjuring franchise (The Nun especially), Doctor Sleep, Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, Insidious 1 and 2, and Pandorum. I like creature features like Tremors and The Thing, but my main go-to is shark movies like Jaws or The Meg. I don’t really like found footage movies with the exception of the original Blair Witch Project.
  
• I have ADHD. Slow burns are very hit or miss for me. I love Sinister and The Shining. I didn’t like Rosemary’s Baby and couldn’t even finish Malignant. I also have trouble focusing on action and text at the same time, so fully subtitled movies are off the table.
  
• No movies where something bad happens to a cat.
  
• I only have access to Hulu, Prime, and basic tier Netflix at the moment.
  

[2.2 Main story spoilers, please only read if you have finished the story. I have spoilered the first three paragraphs to prevent people from unwittingly spoiling themselves.]

I've read many posts in this subreddit objecting to Sunday's philosophy on the basis that Sunday's ideals deprive other inhabitants of Penacony of their free will. I think that this does not strike at the heart of why one should object to Sunday's principles. I happen to have some formal training on the subject, so I will try my best to explain why Sunday's beliefs are objectionable. It is important to not simply get the direction of our opinions correct, but also the reason for believing the way we do correct as well.
In this post, I will address>! Sunday's !!Sunday's!< arguments -- we can look at this post for example. Using concepts from real-world political science scholarship, we can find that Sunday's arguments are not morally wrong. I will proceed to provide actual criticisms of Sunday's arguments after addressing our intuitive feelings to agree withSunday.
A key assumption I make here is that we agree with>! Sunday!!Sunday !!Sunday!< makes a critical misstep in execution that undermines the legitimacy of his entire plan. I'll explain it in the following sections.

Decomposing Sunday's Philosophy: Two principles

Sunday's philosophy can be broken down into two main principles: (1) people should not have to suffer because of their bodily constitution/environment/wealth; and (2) people should have the freedom to use their free time however they like, to achieve their own goals. I'll refer to (1) as the "Firefly principle", and (2) as the "Weekend principle".
Intuitively, we may find that there is nothing wrong with these two principles I've mentioned. This is why we might feel like we should agree with Sunday's ideals. How do we justify our feelings using robust academic concepts?
We can look at this through the idea of "negative" and "positive" liberty by scholar Isiah Berlin. This is the idea that freedom can be defined in two forms: (1) freedom from interference by others (including the environment); and (2) freedom to do things by being empowered with the means to do a given thing.

Negative freedom and the Firefly principle

We'll start with negative freedom and how it is promoted by the "Firefly principle". Basically, Sunday's argument is that people will be more free if they are removed from constraints of health, social status and wealth. Intuition suggests that this is correct, and we are right to follow that intuition. No one should have suffer more than others because they're born into worse circumstances. The famous social justice philosopher John Rawls would say that this suffering due to circumstances not of our own making is arbitrary and unfair.
People affected by their circumstances enjoy less freedom than others because they need to work hardework longecope with more challenges in order to simply live. This extra strain, from factors they cannot control, can be considered interference on a given person. They are forced to suffer the reductions in resources (time, money, etc.) in order to deal with the interference. I call this the Firefly principle because Firefly is the example Sunday uses when talking about this. Firefly is forced to deal with Entropy Loss Syndrome inherent to her circumstances of birth against her will, and has stated that she'd lead a far different life if she weren't bound to her circumstances. The way these circumstances of health, social status and wealth affect a person, against their will, directly contradicts the idea of negative liberty and being free from interference.
On the other hand, Sunday's proposal of removing this factors is convincing because we can see that it really increases the negative freedom of all people. They can reclaim resources that would otherwise be lost to the effects of interference from their circumstances of (lacking) health, social status and wealth. Assuming that we all believe that a greater freedom is preferable to a more limited one, it is clear that Sunday's philosophy, or at least the Firefly principle, is desirable.
In sum, the injustice of this arbitrariness makes us feel that the constraints of health, social status and wealth are morally bad; it is why we feel repulsed by it and in turn attracted to Sunday's ideas.

Positive Freedom and the Weekend principle

We move on to the idea of positive freedom and how we get more of it by following the Weekend principle. The one line that is most striking to most players is Sunday's example of an eternal succession of weekends to replace the working week. This is actually an extreme example which has overshadowed the underlying political position that Sunday holds, which led him to say such a thing. Sunday just wants to give people more resources -- in terms of time -- so that they may be free to pursue their life goals/ambitions. In political science, we call this the "life plan": it refers to what people want to do with their lives, given the resources that they have.
The relationship between the Weekend principle and positive freedom is a simple one. Being given time empowers one (i.e. increases one's positive freedom) because one has access to more resources to accomplish more of what they want. Again, intuitively, we see this as a good thing. We want people to be able to better pursue their dreams, to do what they want to do. To do things requires resources, and Sunday's proposal frees up more resources for people to use on their life goals.

Sunday's problem -- Unilateralism

There is, in fact, nothing wrong with Sunday's philosophy insofar as we consider these two principles. It is the reason that March and Himeko mention that it is difficult to refute Sunday's philosophy in the scene right before the first time you fight Dominicus. If we appreciate freedom and believe it to be desirable for all, Sunday's proposal is morally consistent with our want and appreciation of widespread freedoms.
We set aside the question of whether something done in a dream is as real as something done in reality. It is my belief that the dream/reality thing muddles the scholarly debate regarding Sunday's philosophy, since it is conventionally difficult for one to believe that something done in a dream is more significant that something done in reality. That sort of discussion is probably better left to students of philosophy, who can better argue about the significance of dreams and reality, rather than students of political science. I will deal strictly with the political implications of Sunday's philosophy.
The main problem with Sunday's philosophy is unilateralism. People have been right to point out that Sunday "did not ask for consent". In scholarly terms, we call this despotic/undemocratic behavior. Sunday has not consulted with anyone; he has not engaged in public deliberation; he is using power to enforce the system of government he wants.
Lack of consent is a big issue of course, but a greater concern is dictatorship. Sunday claims that he will be the only person awake, or something along those lines, but it is really a fancy way of saying that he will be sole dictator to dreamland, albeit a utopian one. Ancient philosophers like Plato and Aristotle might actually agree with Sunday's ideas: they had a deep distrust of the follies of the masses, and would rather a capable hand steer the ship of state. This is likely the role Sunday envisions himself in. That is, Sunday sees himself as the enlightened person who will manage paradise in its inhabitants' stead.
The problem arises from the fact that there is no democratic consultation. Classic arguments against dictatorships will apply to Sunday: what happens if he makes an error in judgment? What if he is unable to adequately respond to peoples' needs, even with the power and networking of The Family and its members combined? These are very pragmatic issues that any ruling organization will face, which I imagine will be an even greater problem for Sunday's lonesome.
To tie this back to our objective of promoting freedom, we observe that under Sunday's arrangement, no-one is guaranteed their freedom under Sunday's dictatorship. One may consider themselves free when Sunday's management aligns with their own interests and objectives, but we cannot guarantee the continuity of this alignment into the future. Those who have their goals misaligned with Sunday's vision of utopia will find themselves necessarily unfree, and with no recourse to alter, replace or escape Sunday's government. The prospect of becoming this group of people who are not adequately represented by Sunday undermines Sunday's entire project of increasing the freedom of the weak.

Conclusion (or TL;DR I guess)

Not only does Sunday face significant problems in running Penacony as its sole manager, he also runs the risk of being unrepresentative due to his unilateralism. Inhabitants of Penacony cannot be assured that Sunday will remain a benevolent ruler.
We know that he would likely be one because we have glimpses into his mind through the omniscient viewpoint of the player. However, no-one else in the story can be sure that Sunday will remain a responsive governor of Penacony. Further, there are no accountability mechanisms to depose Sunday and replace him with another leader should he turn out to be tyrannical or incompetent down the road.
In the field of Political Science, this is the problem of centralizing governmental powers. Generally, we want a government that can respond to the needs of its people. Many systems of government will try to avoid putting too much power in a single person, such that there may be checks and balances that will provide some way for people to hold government accountable for their actions and competence. Being able to choose one's government and its policies is a very important freedom. Sunday's benevolent dictatorship fails this requirement.
So how do we fix this? I highlighted the Firefly principle and the Weekend principle because they cohere very closely to real life ideas of socialism. The idea that people should be free from their circumstances, and should be free to apply themselves to whatever life plans they wish to pursue are key tenets of socialism. The only difference is that under socialism, people will decide societal priorities and use of social resources together in democratic fashion. It's entirely fine when people decide, out of their own volition, that they should use resources in a certain way that enhances their freedom. It is, however, problematic when this decision is done unilaterally, such as in Sunday's philosophy.
Outside of his dictatorial tendencies, Sunday really promotes some classic socialist ideas that are intended to address the moral badness of society's failure in addressing social inequalities and peoples' needs for self-fulfillment. He just needs more time to think over his philosophy and execute on it in a manner that is more democratic.
As a final word and to provide some further reading for those that have become interested in political science analysis, I recommend reading "Why not socialism" by scholar G.A. Cohen for a political-philosophical justification of Sunday's philosophy. It's a pretty short read (~20 pages?) and will help us better understand our intuitive agreement with Sunday's philosophy.

I’m about to graduate with my Masters in mental health, and keep wishing I went a different direction. Is this true, or am I just freaking out?
I’m about to graduate and become an LPC. I’ve done everything “right” straight from high school to college, then to graduate school. When I graduated from undergrad I freaked out wishing I had gone into pharmacy, but felt that I was in too deep already. I was graduating and had been accepted to multiple Masters programs.
Now I’m a semester away from graduation, and while I love mental health, and helping others. (& not to toot my own horn, but I’m good at it, naturally good at it.) I just keep stressing out and having feelings of regret. I wish I would have applied myself more at 18 and choose something like Computer engineering. I’ve been extremely worried about making “enough” and being happy in my career.
A big part of me loves psychology, counseling and research and wants to go even further with a Ph.D. Yet another part of me wishes I would have done pharmacy or computer engineering to not only make more, but have more balance in life, and the fact that I’ve been in school as long as those degrees too yet won’t actually scratch the surface of what people in those other fields will make.
I know that’s not the right way of looking at it, & I know I probably sound greedy right now. I just never imagined I’d go this far in school, and now that I have I keep wondering why this. I was 18 when I decided and freaked out and choose Psych because it was easy and made sense. Now, I worry that I took the easy way out & keep wishing I would have applied myself more.
I’m so introverted I feel like I would have loved computer science and programming. I’m creative too. However, I’m shit at math even if I like algebra I always struggled and am not super detail oriented.
Ultimately I don’t know how to handle these feelings. Are they real and legitimate regrets or am I just scared because for the first time in my life I’m about to have a full time position at a major company and not be in school? I’d really appreciate feedback, because I’m feeling so anxious about my choices. I’ve been so focused on making sure I checked all the boxes, I don’t know that they were the right ones.
Thank you for your thoughts and perspectives.

My school art teacher is letting us do a stop motion projects and I wanted to hear thoughts!
Audio is not by me: by Isaacgallegos217 Stop motion: by me

I’m about to graduate and become an LPC. I’ve done everything “right” straight from high school to college, then to graduate school. When I graduated from undergrad I freaked out wishing I had gone into pharmacy, but felt that I was in too deep already. I was graduating and had been accepted to multiple Masters programs.
Now I’m a semester away from graduation, and while I love mental health, and helping others. (& not to toot my own horn, but I’m good at it, naturally good at it.) I just keep stressing out and having feelings of regret. I wish I would have applied myself more at 18 and choose something like Computer engineering. I’ve been extremely worried about making “enough” and being happy in my career.
A big part of me loves psychology, counseling and research and wants to go even further with a Ph.D. Yet another part of me wishes I would have done pharmacy or computer engineering to not only make more, but have more balance in life, and the fact that I’ve been in school as long as those degrees too yet won’t actually scratch the surface of what people in those other fields will make.
I know that’s not the right way of looking at it, & I know I probably sound greedy right now. I just never imagined I’d go this far in school, and now that I have I keep wondering why this. I was 18 when I decided and freaked out and choose Psych because it was easy and made sense. Now, I worry that I took the easy way out & keep wishing I would have applied myself more.
I’m so introverted I feel like I would have loved computer science and programming. I’m creative too. However, I’m shit at math even if I like algebra I always struggled and am not super detail oriented.
Ultimately I don’t know how to handle these feelings. Are they real and legitimate regrets or am I just scared because for the first time in my life I’m about to have a full time position at a major company and not be in school?
Thank you for your thoughts and perspectives.

I'm a 27-year-old guy, currently unemployed, and living with my parents. My work history is rather poor. I got my first job after graduating high school working in a hotel restaurant and did that for about 2 years. I then attended community college for 2.5 years (just to get some college credit). On my last year of community college, I got a basic retail job at Walmart and did that for a year before I quit that job. Shortly after that, I transferred to a local university to finish out my degree over the next 4 years. Today now marks month 5 since I graduated with my Bachelor's degree in computer science and I have yet to land a single job interview. However, I'm mostly to blame for this.
I only have two jobs I can't really put down on a resume as they're unrelated to the field I got my degree in. Even if I did put them down, I have a two-year unemployment gap between those jobs and have been unemployed for four years now. The only thing I have to my name is a Bachelor's degree in computer science. The issue is that I can't put together a resume to get a decent job with my degree. For tech jobs, I only have a handful of software course projects that I've done during school, which isn't enough. Besides, these are only applicable to software development/engineering jobs so I have nothing I can presently use to apply to jobs such as ones in IT, programming analyst positions, data analyst positions, etc. I've considered other white-collar jobs unrelated to the tech field, but yet again there is nothing in my work history that I can use for this.
Every day I've been considering joining the military. I know some branches have tech-related jobs so I'm hoping this can give me the experience I need in the future if I don't stick with a military career. The only way I will join the military, however, is if I join in as a commissioned officer. The application package unfortunately requires things I don't have (e.g., work/life/leadership experience, references). I did ask about this potential path before in cscareerquestions, and the consensus seemed to be that it's a bad idea.

I'm currently a first year student studying computer science at the University of Washngton, seattle campus. I have been at the school for like 3 quarters so far so this is almost the end of my freshman year, but even after 3 quarter taking CSE courses, I still can't find the balance to how to approach CSE courses in general. My main struggle is how should I use chatGPT for my programming assignments and homeworks.
Before starting university, I worked as a software engineering for about 9 months (not in the USA), and I was able to most of the works using chatGPT because all I had to do was understand the codebase, read the documentation, and write the required code using chatGPT. However, after I started school, I still using chatGPT for generating code for me and I don't know if that is a good thing or bad thing.
For example, I was writing this server side code for chatBot application in one of my CSE courses, and I was stuck on the problem for a very long time. Then, I used the chatGPT for an answer and it produced the correct answer in an instant. Since I was stuck on a problem, I did not see the point of not using a chatGPT. However, the problem arises when the code works and the application works, and I just move on to the next problem because it works.
I'm not even trying to understand the chatGPT result since it is working. I know that this is a bad practice, but I want to ask is it really necessary to understand the code if it works? if it works, it works right? I don't have to waste my time. if that is not right, how should I change my mindset and what programming practices should I try to develop? Is there any books/lectures/vidoes that I can find to help me cultivate different mindset?
In the past, even before chatGPT existed, people used to search answers on StackOverflow, but I remember some programmers used to say "don't blindly copy/paste code" and instead understand the them. I think with these people, they have really different mindset when it comes to code.
Most of my friends at school do not use chatGPT for programming and they basically do all of the code implementation from scratch. if they have to look at answers, they go to stackOverflow or google to search for answers, not chatGPT. what is the mindset that drives them to not use chatGPT for programming and instead use different tools like google or StackOverflow?
finally, my last question is what makes a good programmer?

(24F) From winning academic competitions in high school, to ranking 11th in a class of 1000 without trying (felt like a sham), to scoring a 1510 on my SAT with a vague idea of what would be on it prior to sitting, to graduating magna cum laude with a B.S. in mathematics, minors in French and economics, and research and leadership roles under my belt (while balancing a bad 🍃 habit), etc., I can confidently say that academic success came with ease. I’ve been working to save up for grad school. Thus far, I’m doing well in my job. I’m taking on new projects, all of which lie outside of my immediate job description. I’m taking over the roles of my superiors when they’re out. Good stuff.
But OH MY GOD. Off paper, I’m a mess. Typing this out, I see 7 fast food bags from the past couple of months sitting in my immediate vicinity. Grocery bags litter the floor. There’s a month + old tortilla chip bag right in front of me. I’m not sure when I last showered. I have months of unopened mail piling up on my table. Dirty dishes get reused throughout the week. I don’t eat nearly enough. The only things I’m good about doing habitually are brushing my teeth, flossing, and doing laundry. I have been struggling to study for exam FM (sitting in august) because I don’t find it interesting. I am supposed to be studying in the small amount of free time I have before and after work (or cleaning, quite frankly), but I’ve been writing a blog about the American tendency toward political extremism in recent years.
I was diagnosed at 21 and recently resumed medication (took me 1.5 years to see a doctor). With medication, studying has become easier, and I can SEE all of my immediate issues with cleanliness. But I can’t force myself to DO anything about it. I was told I’d be a lawyer, engineer, doctor, etc., but I’m living like a guy who spends all of his time on 4chan and pisses in Mountain Dew bottles.
Please tell me I’m not alone.

Chapter Two - Part One
First Half
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Outposts sprang up on Mercury and the moons of the Kuiper Belt, each a testament to human ingenuity and perseverance. The harsh landscapes of these worlds posed new challenges, but they also offered new resources and opportunities. The ability to leap across the galaxy using faster-than-light travel encapsulated the dark, relentless drive of the human spirit to explore, expand, and survive.
The network of colonies became interconnected, serving as launch pads for further exploration. The new FTL technologies transformed the galaxy into a neighborhood rather than an infinite wilderness. Each jump through space brought humanity closer to its neighbors in the cosmos, for better or worse.
The universe, once a vast, lonely place, was now a landscape of potential new homes and new challenges. As humanity spread out from the Solar System to the stars, the stage was set for new conflicts and new stories, written not in the light of the Sun but in the starlight of distant worlds.
__________________
Humanity's march to the stars was driven by necessity and survival, stark against the backdrop of Earth's dwindling resources and rising conflicts. After World War I, the foundational theories of rocketry emerged, setting the stage for the later technological leaps that would propel humans into space. The brutal rivalry of the Cold War accelerated these advancements, pushing the Soviet Union and the United States to compete in the space race, a silent war fought with satellites and lunar landings.
The practical applications of these early missions were not just about planting flags but also about testing human limits and technologies in the harsh environment of space. The moon landings of 1969 were a global spectacle. Yet, they also underscored the sheer isolation and vulnerability of human life suspended in the cosmic void.
As the decades rolled on, the international focus shifted from competition to cooperation. The space shuttle program symbolized this new era, with nations coming together to build the International Space Station and to send joint missions to Mars. These efforts turned sci-fi dreams into reality—establishing bases on the moon and sending manned missions to Mars laid the groundwork for future colonization.
The drive to inhabit Mars and the moon grew out of a blend of fear and fascination. Habitats expanded into fully functioning colonies, tapping into local resources to create self-sustaining environments. Technologies developed for extracting water and producing air on these barren worlds were critical for long-term survival.
In the shadows of these achievements, the Alcubierre Warp drive emerged as a revolutionary breakthrough, allowing humanity to leapfrog across vast stellar distances in a blink. The UNV Pathfinder and its sister ship, the UNV Exploration, were equipped with this technology to reconnect with colony ships sent out decades earlier in the Great Exodus. These vessels carried not just new drives but also vital updates in agriculture, medicine, and communications to ensure the colonies could thrive.
Each successful mission with the warp drives was a lifeline, not only physically connecting distant colonies to Earth but also weaving a web of interstellar human culture. Resources and knowledge flowed freely, bolstering each colony's chance of success. These ships were built to endure the extremes of space. They were equipped with advanced life-support systems and autonomous navigation, and they were fortresses navigating the unknown.
Meanwhile, Earth and its solar system colonies were pushed further into space. Massive construction projects like O'Neal Cylinders and space elevators dotted the celestial landscape, marking human progress in the cosmos. Each colony, from Mars's rugged plains to the cloud tops of Venus, developed its distinct culture and identity, united by their shared heritage and mutual challenges.
Space travel was fraught with hazards. Asteroids and solar flares were just the beginning; the cosmos was a place of deep unpredictability and danger. Despite these risks, during this era, not just hundreds of thousands but hundreds of millions of people chose to leave Earth. They embarked on journeys aboard new colony ships. These immense vessels were comparable in size to or even surpassed the O'Neal Cylinder habitats in scale. These ships were behemoths, carrying the very essence of Earth and the seeds of future colonies.
The exodus reached systems like Alpha Centauri A and B, Proxima Centauri, Sirius A and B, Barnard's Star, Luyten 726-8 (BL Ceti and UV Ceti), Ross 154 (V1216 Sagittarii), and Wolf 359. These stars became the bedrock of the United Nations of Sol, the precursor to what would be known as the "Human Sphere." It was a time of unprecedented growth and prosperity for humanity, expanding further than ever before in its history.
As humans settled in these new worlds, they faced not only the physical challenges of new environments but also profound isolation and the psychological burden of being light-years away from Earth. Each colony developed its own way of life, adapting to the unique conditions of their new worlds. The challenges of establishing a foothold in these alien places were immense. Local resources were harvested, and technologies were adapted to create habitable atmospheres and viable ecosystems.
Communication between the colonies and Earth was sparse, limited by the vast distances. Each message took years to travel, even at the speed of light, making each colony effectively isolated in its own right. This isolation led to a variety of cultural evolutions and deviations from Earth's norms, which in turn led to a tapestry of diverse human experiences spread across the stars.
The technologies that allowed these pioneers to travel to and settle new worlds were monumental. Fusion drives, quantum computers, and terraforming equipment were standard on these ships. Life aboard the colony ships was a mix of awe at the cosmic vistas and the mundanity of daily life in confined spaces. Generations were born and died in transit, with only stories of Earth as their legacy.
Each new home was a gamble against the cosmos, and not all were successful. Some colonies failed tragically, and their populations were lost to space or were unable to survive in harsh new environments. But for every failure, there was a story of remarkable success and resilience. The human spirit, driven by a need to explore and expand, thrived in adversity. Humanity never gave up and, over the next century, continued to send colonists to each of these star systems and began the process of colonizing each system.
In the stark expanses of space, every new settlement humanity attempted was a stark challenge against the cosmos, and the failures were as common as the successes. Many colonies were lost—whole populations vanished into the void or succumbed to the inhospitable climes of unfamiliar planets. Despite these setbacks, for every outpost that fell, others sprang up in defiance of the odds, showcases of human resilience and determination.
This relentless push into the unknown was not powered by naïve optimism but rather a hardened will to forge a path, wherever possible, to lay claim to the stars themselves. Humanity's spirit, unbroken by repeated failures, continued to drive its expansion across galaxies. Over the decades, this resolve only hardened as each failed colony became a lesson in survival, a step towards mastering life in the cosmos.
The stark realities of space tested human resolve to its limits. Beyond the safety of the Solar System, the universe emerged not just as a vast place of exploration but as a harsh environment of extreme conditions and existential threats. The initial failures taught valuable lessons in logistics, life support, and sustainable living on alien soil, which were crucial for future endeavors.
Colonization efforts became more sophisticated over time. Humans developed technologies that could convert inhospitable terrains into somewhat livable habitats. Advanced terraforming equipment and life-support systems became standard in new colonies. These tools represented more than mere survival mechanisms; they were symbols of humanity's unyielding quest to inhabit the stars.
As colonies spread further into the galaxy, each new venture was underpinned by an increasingly detailed understanding of interstellar travel and survival. The experiences gathered from every failed settlement informed the next, creating a cumulative body of knowledge that bolstered human persistence. The drive to expand took on a rhythm of its own, a cycle of trial, error, and success that slowly but surely extended the reach of human civilization.
This cycle was reflected in the evolution of colonial policies and technologies. From the early days of rudimentary habitats to the development of massive, self-sustaining complexes that could house thousands, the growth was palpable. Each successful colony served as a proof of concept for the next. With each launch, humanity's footprint in the galaxy grew larger.
The colonies themselves varied wildly—a testament to human ingenuity and the diverse environments encountered. Some were burrowed into asteroids, others sprawled across red Martian sands or nestled in the volatile cloud tops of Venus. Each presented unique challenges and required bespoke solutions to make them habitable.
Interstellar ships, equipped with the latest in warp drive technology, ferried resources between these colonies. They were lifelines essential for maintaining the flow of essential supplies and personnel. These vessels were also carriers of culture and connection, linking distant humans across the void of space.
Despite the vast distances and slow communications, a network of human presence began to stitch together disparate points of light into a coherent tapestry of colonies. This network was more than a mere chain of outposts; it was the backbone of a burgeoning interstellar society—a network that held potential not only for survival but for a new era of human prosperity.
However, this expansion was not without its darker aspects. The harsh conditions of space required strict governance and often harsh penalties for breaches of colony protocol. Life in these new worlds was rigidly structured, a necessity to maintain order in environments where even a small mistake could be fatal.
Each new settlement was a dice roll against the vast uncertainties of space, and many did not survive. Failures were frequent; entire colonies vanished into the void or succumbed to the inhospitable conditions of their newfound planets. The loss of life was substantial, casting a shadow over the ambitious interstellar expansion efforts. However, each disaster also hardened the resolve of those who remained. The cumulative knowledge gained from these failures informed future endeavors, refining the protocols and technologies needed to endure and thrive in alien environments.
Despite the high stakes and frequent setbacks, human resolve remained unshaken. The determination to push forward, to establish a foothold in the cosmos, was fueled by necessity and the innate human drive to explore. As each failed colony became a lesson learned, the strategies for survival evolved. More robust life support systems were developed, and habitats were designed to be more adaptable to the unpredictable conditions of new worlds.
The stark reality of these endeavors was that many who left Earth would never return. They journeyed knowing the risks—trading the safety of their home planet for the promise of a new start on distant, uncharted worlds. This was the cost of progress, paid willingly by those driven by a vision of humanity's future among the stars.
With each new wave of colonists, technology and experience accumulated, reducing the risks and increasing the chances of success. Ships became more advanced, equipped with better navigation systems and life-support capabilities. Colonization techniques also improved, with genetic engineering playing a crucial role in adapting human physiology to extraterrestrial environments.
The harshness of space demanded a relentless pursuit of efficiency and sustainability. Resources were scarce, and logistical challenges were immense. The vast distances between colonies meant that each had to be largely self-sufficient. Communication lags, sometimes spanning years, forced these communities to develop a high degree of autonomy.
Over the centuries, this relentless expansion forged a new breed of human. These spacefarers were tough, adaptable, and fiercely independent. Their lives, spent on the frontier of human existence, were a testament to the species' tenacity. They cultivated their new worlds, turning barren landscapes into bustling colonies. These settlements eventually grew into hubs of culture and technology, distinct yet still connected to their ancestral home by shared history and common humanity.
Yet, the expansion was not without its darker aspects. The isolation of distant colonies often led to psychological strain and societal breakdown. In some cases, governance structures collapsed under the weight of external pressures and internal conflicts. Pirates and marauders, drawn by the wealth of fledgling colonies, became a significant threat, leading to the establishment of militarized zones and the deployment of defense forces.
As humans adapted to life in space, they also had to contend with the presence of other sentient species. Initial interactions were cautious and fraught with tension and misunderstandings. Some encounters led to conflict, others to alliances. These relationships were complex, shaped by a mix of diplomacy, trade, and, occasionally, warfare.
Humanity's venture into interstellar space fundamentally transformed its cultural and identity landscapes. As humans spread across the stars, encountering diverse environments and nurturing colonies on planets ranging from Mars to far-flung systems, the challenges of survival and the ethical dimensions of expansion pressed hard on their collective psyche.
Values long held sacred on Earth were reevaluated in the face of new realities. The discovery of life—fauna and flora—on other planets during these colonization efforts marked a pivotal shift. While no sentient alien species were encountered, the existence of alien ecosystems was profound. It highlighted not only humanity's isolation in the cosmos but also its responsibilities.
On Alpha Centauri, the first successful integration of Earth's lifeforms with alien biomes set a precedent. Genetic manipulation technologies were refined, allowing Earth's organisms to coexist with and enhance these extraterrestrial habitats. Conservation efforts were paramount; preserving the integrity and diversity of alien ecosystems became a moral imperative as much as a scientific endeavor.
Each colony, from the red dust of Mars to the lush jungles of distant exoplanets, became a testbed for these principles. They were microcosms where human ingenuity, ethical considerations, and ecological stewardship intersected. Through these experiences, humanity did not just spread through space; it grew, evolved, and redefined what it meant to be human in the vast expanse of the universe.
Through all these trials, the human spirit's resilience shone brightly. Never deterred by the enormity of their challenges, humans continued to push the boundaries of their known universe. Each colony, each ship, and each life represented a thread in the vast tapestry of human endeavor in space—a relentless march toward an uncertain but ceaselessly pursued future.
Chapter Two
Beginning of Entry…
StarDate: Redacted
Perspective: Noah Stark
Species: Human, Humanoid Mammalian Species, no tail.
Description: 5 feet 2 inches [1.6 meters] to 6 feet 9 inches [2.1 meters] average height. 185 lbs [84 kilograms] average weight.
Longevity: 70 to 500-year life expectancy with life extension medical tech.
Unique Trait: Resilience and Indomitable Will.
Vessel: ICV The Argonaut
Location: New Eden Star Cluster
Noah, his gaze locked on the viewport, watched the ancient ship float aimlessly among the asteroids. The ICV The Argonaut, under his skilled control, edged closer, enabling the deployment of EVA suits for inspection. Behind him, his mother, Gwendolyn Stark, and his sisters, Jane and Joan, prepared for the walk, their movements a blend of anticipation and professionalism. The ship, a silent relic of a bygone era, revealed no signs of life, a fact confirmed by both Shinra Hinaba and Serenity, the Argonaut's AI.
This discovery, hidden among the celestial debris, was a treasure. It wasn't just a ship; it was a gateway to unparalleled recognition for the Shinra-Stark-Daiwa Mining Group. While the Argonaut and its crew focused on this historical artifact, the rest of the fleet mined the surrounding asteroids, harvesting resources critical for the survival of distant colonies.
Hinaba's voice, laced with a mix of excitement and concern, snapped Noah back to the present. "Focus, Noah!" she said, her fist-bumping Noah's shoulder in a friendly gesture. "We've got a lot riding on bringing this ship in intact."
"I know, I know! Just relax, Hinaba! I've got this," Noah assured her, his attention riveted to the controls. His reputation as the fleet's top pilot wasn't unfounded, a fact even the skeptical private military contractors had come to acknowledge. Almost as if summoned by their conversation, the Director's face appeared on the communications screen next to Hinaba, an uncanny timing that suggested he was closely monitoring their progress.
It was then that Director Shinra Senzo's image flickered onto the communications screen, his timing almost too perfect. "What's your status, Noah?" he asked, a brief glance toward his daughter betraying his deeper concerns. Despite his reservations about Noah's closeness with Hinaba, he was willing to see where their partnership might lead, a stance influenced by discussions with Noah's father.
"We're in!" Gwendolyn's voice crackled through the comms, marking their successful approach. But their moment of triumph was shattered by a distress signal, a desperate call cutting through the static. Elaine and Beth Frost, Noah's cousins, scrambled to decipher it, their faces etched with growing alarm.
After a tense moment, Beth's face drained of color, but it was Eliane who eventually shared the grim news, which was dire: "An unknown force has attacked New Eden. Their defenses are falling…" The weight of their words hung heavy in the bridge. An unseen adversary had breached the colony's defenses, leaving them vulnerable. The realization that any hope of immediate assistance from the USSA or SFR was weeks or even a full stellar month away if at all, underscored the gravity of their situation. With the defense fleet in ruins, their only hope lay with the ICV Ishimura, and the hired PMC mercenary group onboard, initially engaged to fend off pirates, might now be their only hope against this new and formidable threat.
Silence enveloped the bridge as the magnitude of the crisis dawned on them. They were alone, far from help, facing a threat of unknown proportions. Noah felt a tightness in his jaw, anger and resolve mixing in equal measure. The prospect of what lay ahead was daunting, yet there was no room for doubt. They had to act swiftly.
Gwendolyn's voice broke the silence, her command clear. "We need to act, and quickly. Our priority is the safety of this crew and ensuring we can lend aid to New Eden. Noah, plot a course back. We have to prepare for what's to come."
Hinaba, her usual levity gone, nodded. "We have the Ishimura, and we're not defenseless. Let's make sure we're ready for whatever's out there."
As Noah adjusted the ship's course, a sense of determined urgency took hold. They were heading back, not just to confront a threat, but to defend their home, their people.
Director Senzo's voice crackled through the communication channel, his tone tinged with impatience yet seeking reassurance. "It would be great to know what the status of your progress is, Noah," he pressed, his words carrying a sense of urgency.
Noah could sense the weight of expectation in Director Senzo's inquiry. Despite the pressure, Noah remained composed, and his years of experience in the field allowed him to maintain a calm demeanor even in the face of such scrutiny. With a steady voice, he replied, "We're making steady progress, Director. I'll provide you with a detailed update shortly."

He paused as he focused on the holo-Feed in front of him and analyzed the available data in real-time thanks to his military-grade holo-NeuralSyne Implant. "We're adjusting course," Noah replied, his tone firm yet marked by an undercurrent of urgency. "Heading back to New Eden. We'll be ready." 

In the silence that followed, a collective resolve fortified them. They were facing the unknown, as the derelict ship could bring untold bounty from within its hull.
Director Senzo's command carved through the static a clear mandate that reset their priorities. "Noah, before you depart the asteroid belt, I am dispatching a Porter Tug to commandeer the derelict ship. It's our top priority... Get that ship secure before you Skip Jump back to the ICV Argos-1. That is a Prime Directive!" His voice, a blend of authority and urgency, left no room for debate.
Noah, hands steady on the controls, glanced briefly at the communications panel. The weight of the directive pressed into him, a stark reminder of the stakes involved. He turned, catching the gaze of his crew, a silent signal that it was time to adapt their plan. The crew exchanged quick, significant glances, each understanding the gravity of the order. The derelict ship, an ancient relic floating among the asteroids, was not just another find—it was a piece of history, potentially holding untold knowledge and value. The directive from Director Shinra Senzo underscored its importance, not just to their mission but to the broader ambitions of the Shinra-Stark-Daiwa Mining Group.
Noah's mind went back over the meaning of what such an order entailed. Refusing to follow the directive would most certainly spell the end of his career. On one hand, he wanted to help those in need and who were under siege by an unknown force. The New Eden Star Cluster was not just a single system but a series of star systems in close proximity to one another. Noah and the rest of the ICV Argos-1 collective fleet were mining ore around Eden-159; currently, the planets were still being colonized, but in ten years, that would change. Our job was to mine ore to return to Eden-109, one of the 1,119 star systems in the New Eden Cluster.
The directive was clear: any new discovery in the outer rims of human space takes top priority above all other mandates, and the crew of The Argonaut was ready. Despite the risks, the potential rewards were too significant to ignore. As preparations for the operation began in earnest, the sense of unity and purpose among the crew was palpable. Each member knew their role and was prepared to execute it with precision. Noah Stark, standing firm at the helm, nodded sharply. "Understood, Director. We'll secure the derelict and rendezvous with the Argos-1 as planned." His voice was calm, a stark contrast to the racing thoughts behind his composed exterior. The task was daunting, yet his confidence in his crew's abilities was unshakeable.
Shinra Hinaba, her eyes reflecting a mix of determination and concern, shifted in her search. Her fingers were already dancing across the console, setting up communication channels. Her role as the ship's specialist meant she was well-versed in the technicalities of such operations, and her confidence was discernible. "We'll need to coordinate with the tug. I can set up a direct comms link and guide their approach." Her voice, usually light and teasing in their private moments, now carried the professional edge of her role.
Gwendolyn Stark, the matriarch and seasoned explorer, nodded in agreement. "Time is of the essence. Let's secure that ship and make sure it's safe for the tug. We can't afford any delays." Her experience shone through, her demeanor calm yet commanding, rallying her children and the crew with a few choice words. "Everything is by the book. This ship could be a significant find for us," she stated, her voice firm.
Elaine, renowned for her cool demeanor under pressure, exchanged a glance of shared determination with Beth. With a nod, they moved to their stations, their movements precise and efficient, a testament to years of seamless coordination in the face of adversity.
Beth, known for her unwavering focus and quick thinking, shared a silent understanding with Elaine. Together, they pivoted to their respective stations, their synchronization seamless and instinctual. In the heart of chaos, their unity forged a stronghold of resolve, a beacon of stability amid the storm.
"We're on it, Mom," Elaine stated, her hands flying over her console, prepping the EVA suits for another walk.
Beth said decisively, "We'll be ready to assist the Tug team with anything they need." Beth nodded in agreement, both sisters moving to gather the necessary gear. Their well-honed skills in extravehicular activities made them indispensable for the task at hand.
Elaine intonated as she focused on the external sensors: "I'll keep an eye out for any debris or potential hazards for the tug. We don't want any surprises."
Grace Frost, the voice of strategy and foresight, considered the logistics. "Once the ship is secure, we'll need to plot a careful course back. The extra mass will affect our jump calculations."
Jennifer Stark, my youngest sister, a blend of youth and sharp intellect, nodded. Jennifer's hands moved to assist Shinra with the communications setup. Meanwhile, Jamie reviewed the ship's specs, ensuring they had all the data needed for a smooth operation. "Let's ensure we have all the data we need for a smooth operation," she said, her tone serious, betraying the gravity of their task.
Jamie Stark, also my youngest sister, focused on the ship's specs. Her hands moved deftly over the controls as she reviewed the data. "Absolutely," she chimed in, her voice steady as she continued her meticulous review. "We can't afford any oversights if we want this mission to succeed." Her words echoed Jennifer's sentiment, highlighting the importance of thorough preparation.
Jamie added, "I'll run a diagnostic on the derelict's structural integrity. We need to know it can withstand the jump."
Director Senzo's image flickered on the screen once more, a stern reminder of the urgency. "Even if you return now, the fleet can't make the FTL jump until all ships have returned to their hangars and docking bays. You have time to tug the derelict ship back to the ICV Argos-1."
Noah, absorbing every detail, finally responded. "Understood, Director. We'll secure the ship and ensure it's ready for the tug. Argonaut out." His voice, firm and confident, belied the racing thoughts of potential complications and the precision required for their new task.
The directive was clear, and the crew of the Argonaut was ready. Despite the risks, the potential rewards were too significant to ignore. As preparations for the operation began in earnest, the sense of unity and purpose among the crew was palpable. The bridge buzzed with activity, each member of the crew moving with purposeful speed. The Argonaut, once a silent observer among the stars, was now a hive of focused energy, ready to execute a directive that could very well shift the balance of their task. Each member knew their role and was prepared to execute it with precision. The arduous task of securing the derelict ship was directive from above; it was a challenge they were all eager to meet head-on.
"Let's get to work," Noah said, his gaze sweeping over his crew and his family. "We have a ship to secure." His statement, simple yet laden with unspoken responsibility, set them into motion, each person aware of the part they played in the intricate dance of space exploration and survival. Aboard the Argonaut, there was no room for doubt. Only action, determination, and the collective will to succeed in the face of the unknown. Then, they would make the FTL jump to Eden-109 to aid the colonists under siege.
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I'm a highschooler with 2 siblings who went to Upenn. I want to apply early decision. What are my chances. Here are my stats

• 3.92 unweighted GPA
• AP classes: AP world, AP euro, APUSH, AP bio, AP Lang, AP lit, ap spanish, AP human geography, AP chem, AP calc BC , AP spanish 2(forgot what its called), AP physics 1 - all my other classes were honors,
• 1530 SAT
• Founder of a non profit that branches out to multiple schools(help for elderly basically)
• Red cross club, my club, leadership position is science honors society and science research, leadership position in chess club/middle eastern club
• i’m in all of the honors societies with the exception of math
• Community service at hospitals/old homes - over 700 hours in total
• Got to international science research, did not place well. I have a patent over my project though.
• Research with a college for my science research project about ocean acidification
• Eagle scout
• volleyball all 4 years

I also hope i get in to NYU, and all ivies.

I accidentally posted this to my username instead of my subreddit so here is is:
The Mortgage, Part 3
“Fuck,” I said as I drove to work in the old beater that only started on the fourth try because it could tell that I was pissed off. Ray’s case started at two o’clock, and I was heading to the office to get ready. “Fuck fuck fuckity fucking fuck. Fuck.” I’d wanted to tell Angela about Ray’s case, and how I was sorry that I hadn’t wanted to help him, but now I would, I would help him, and I would win, but then I’d gotten her all riled up on something else, something totally different, something way more serious.
My wife had given me a triple ultimatum: fix things up with her father, save idiot Ray from Sy-Co Corp., and somehow find a downpayment for the place she wanted to buy, in the little townhouse infill project in Bixity. It was like demanding I do a double bank shot, and then run over to the baseball diamond and hit a home run after first pointing to where it would land, Babe Ruth style.
Angela was mad at me, seriously mad. She’d slipped out that morning before I was even awake, sliding quietly past me on the couch. I didn’t realize she was gone until I heard the faint click of the front door closing. I jumped up, tripped over a blanket, and by the time I got up and my robe on, the elevator down the hall dinged, and Angela was gone before I opened the apartment door.
I swore at myself some more and pounded the steering wheel, “I fucked up,” I said, several times as I hit the wheel over and over again, until I accidentally honked it, and then looked all sheepish when the guy in front of me gave me the finger. I reached my office without further incident, but instead of walking in the front door, I went further down the hall, and into the office of Mark Cecil-Rowe, Barrister, LL.D, the man with the finest speaking voice I ever heard. When I entered his office I forgot for a minute about Angela and her father and sleeping on the couch the night before. I forget about everything, except the reason that I had come to Cecil-Rowe’s office: to stump him with a legal problem that I had solved, but which I was pretty sure he could not. In other words, I had come to preen and to brag and to boast. No one likes a showoff, and I had come to show off. I put my hand on the door and turned the knob. After a brief pause, I flung open the door.
“I’m a goddamn genius,” I said as I strolled into the older man’s office.
I noticed the echo of a hastily closed desk drawer hanging in the air. In Aaron’s office, where I rented space, a sudden act of concealment implied cocaine, but with Cecil-Rowe, the item in question was probably a mickey of vodka. I had the sense that he’d been drinking a bit before I arrived, but his powers of observation were unimpaired, and when he looked into my face, his expression showed sympathy, and actual pain.
“What have you done now?” he said, as set the papers before him to one side, and readied himself to hear my latest tale of legal brilliance.
“I’m a genius,” I said.
“Oh dear. Have a seat.”
“No really, I am. I’m a genius. I got this case that everyone says you can’t win, but I’m gonna win it, and when I do, I’m gonna look like a genius.” Cecil-Rowe gave me a sad indulgent smile.
“Whenever you tell me you’re a genius, I am always concerned about what is to follow. When you get wrapped up in what you call your genius, you tend to ignore the more mundane things we lawyers have to do to win a case. You think you’re going to win by genius alone.”
“Let me tell you why I’m a goddamn genius.” With effort I wiped the smug, self-satisfied expression that was on my face.
“Tell me why you’re a genius,” Cecil-Rowe said, “while I pour us a coffee.” He heaved his bulky body up from his chair and shuffled over to a counter. He picked up a carafe of hot coffee sitting on a hot plate, and poured two cups. “Speak,” he said, handing me one. I took a sip of the coffee, and told Cecil-Rowe the tale of Cousin Ray: his purchase of a franchise from Sy-Co Corp, its swift demise, the crash and burn in Commercial Court, the Minutes of Settlement, the seventy-one kilometer limit, and lastly, Sy-Co’s motion scheduled for two p.m. that very day, seeking an interim injunction shutting down Ray’s place.
Cecil-Rowe absorbed all this without the need to take notes. Instead, he sat back while he eyed me, taking the occasional sip of coffee, and smiling at the extravagant flourishes and details that brought out Ray’s story to full effect.
“Obviously Ray is dead on arrival,” he said, “but I guess this is the part where you tell me how you’re going to win.”
So I told him how I was going to win, but it didn’t have the desired effect. “I told ya I’m a genius, Mr. C,” cueing him to applaud, to admit what a brilliant lawyer I was. But there was no applause from Mark Cecil-Rowe. He looked at me without so much as a smile.
“You can cling to that genius notion as a consolation prize, after you get whipped this afternoon in court.”
“No way,” I said, “not a chance. I got this thing won hands down. I’m gonna kick ass in court today and--”
“And how exactly do you plan to do that, if you don’t have evidence?”
“What?”
“Evidence, Calledinthe9os. It’s what lawyers like me use to beat geniuses like you.”
“But I’m gonna win without proof. I don’t need proof. The argument I’m gonna make, relies on simple facts that are totally obvious, so the judge is gonna--” Cecil-Rowe stuck up his hand.
“Stop right there. I know what’s coming. You’re going to ask the judge to take *judicial notice.”
And he was right. That was exactly what I was going to do.
There are some things so obvious that you didn’t have to prove them, things that everyone knew. You didn’t have to prove that water froze at zero degrees and boiled at a hundred, or that Bixity was between West Bay and East Bay.
“You got it,” I said, “judicial notice all the way.”
“You’re going to tell the judge that the centerpiece of your argument, the lynchpin of your case is a fact known to pretty well everyone, and so you don’t need proof.”
“Exactly,” I said. Cecil-Rowe took another sip of his coffee, and left me hanging in the silence for a while before he spoke.
“If that’s true, then why does coming up with that argument make you a genius?”
“Oh, I said,”I didn’t think of that.”
“It is acceptable to rely on judicial notice for minor, ancillary points. But you never should walk into court thinking that the court will take judicial notice of your entire defence. It’s just too risky.”
“But how am I going to rustle up a witness in time for this afternoon?”
“Worry about that after you leave my office. I can’t help you with that. What I want to know, is why you’re doing this at the last minute.”
“What makes you think I’m doing this at the last minute?”
“Because you never would have resorted to judicial notice if you were properly prepared. If you’d opened this case a bit earlier, you’ve have everything lined up. But you got to work on it late, and so you want to rely on judicial notice. You’ve messed up, Calledinthe90s, and you know what my rule is when you mess up.” Cecil-Rowe didn’t extend aid to me, until I admitted the error of my ways. It was infuriating, but he was inflexible. So I fessed up.
“My idiot cousin Ray’s been trying to retain me for almost two weeks, but I was putting him off because I was mad at him. So now my wife’s mad at me, and if I don’t win this case, I’m dead. Plus her dad’s mad at me too and --” My brain roared into overdrive, a mess of family and law and fear, and at the centre of it, thoughts of Angela’s anger and her father. My mind took off, and then came to an instant halt at a helpful destination.
“Yes?” Cecil-Rowe said.
“Sorry. I just realized how to solve the evidence problem. Look, can I ask you about the thing I actually came here to ask you about?”
“You have a problem that’s worse than having no evidence? What could be worse than -- oh. You don’t have a retainer. Your client doesn't have any money.”
“Exactly. How do I get paid? That’s the problem.” I explained that Ray had no money, as in none, and that if he did have money, he wouldn’t spend it on me. Instead, he’d go back downtown and throw his cash at some big firm, who would take on his case, and proceed to lose it in a calm, careful, sober manner, ending in a reporting letter to Ray telling him that he’d lost.
“Now that’s a problem I can solve,” Cecil-Rowe said.
“Really? ‘Cause I can’t see a way around it. I think I’m gonna have to do this for free, and that really pisses me off.” Cecil-Rowe shook his head.
“You may or may not get paid, but you can set things up so that if you win, you’ll win pretty good.”
“How? Ray’s a deadbeat. Tapped out.”
“But is he desperate?”
“Totally. The first time he failed, he lost his own money, but if he goes under this time, he’s taking family money with him, and he’ll be the black sheep forever.”
“And he’s using family to emotionally blackmail you into helping him?’
“Like no shit. That’s the part that pisses me off the most. I’m like a goddamn slave, being forced to work for free.”
“Never fear, young apprentice. I have just the thing in mind.” He reached into a drawer, and pulled out a form. “Fill in the blanks, and have him sign.”
I looked it over, and saw that the document was a retainer agreement. I whistled. “Holy shit. If he signs this, he’s almost my slave.”
“Close, but not quite” Cecil-Rowe said, “the Latin term for this is "contractus pro venditione animae"”. It’s the ultimate retainer agreement. Once Ray signs that, you own any cause of action he has against the person suing him. You can settle the case on any terms you like, and you get to keep whatever proceeds there are.” Cecil-Rowe placed the folder back in a drawer, and from his manner you could tell that the interview was over.
“Awesome, Mr. C. I’ll call you from Commercial Court when we’re done.”
“Commercial Court?” he said.
“Yeah, Commercial Court.”
“This just keeps getting worse. Take notes, Calledinthe90s, while I school you on Commercial Court. Commercial Court is a jungle, and without preparation, you’ll get savaged.”
“That’s what happened to Ray when--”
“Take notes, young apprentice,” he said, tossing me a pad and a pen. He started to lecture, and I took notes that I have with me to this day, in a safe deposit box downstairs in the vault at Mega Bank Main Branch.
* * *
By the time Cecil-Rowe finished schooling me, it was close to ten, and the case started at two. I didn’t have much time. I ran down the hall to my office, and called Ray’s restaurant. No answer. Then I called Ray’s house. I expected to get Ray’s wife, but the man himself answered.
“You’re not at work. Why aren’t you at work?”
“Sy-Co Corp served all my employees with a cease and desist letter. They all got scared and took off. The place is shut down.”
“You gotta fax machine at home?” He did, and asked why.
“I’m taking your case, but only if you sign the paper I’m about to send and fax it back.” I sent the fax, and five minutes later it came back signed, and it was official: Ray had sold me his legal soul.
I went out to the parking lot, got into my beater and drove fast. In less than thirty minutes I reached my destination. I knocked on the door, and when it opened, my diminutive mother-in-law poked out her head. “What a pleasant surprise,” she said.
“Sorry, Mrs. M, but I’m in a super hurry. I gotta rush to get to court to help Ray. But first, I gotta speak to Dr. M.”
“He’s not here,” she said.
“Not here?”
“He’s on his way to his bridge game. He left just a few minutes ago.”
“Where’s the club?”
“He’s walking there,” she said, and pointed down the street.
“Thanks.” I got into my car and headed where Mrs. M had pointed, passing big houses and new project with an “Opening Soon” sign. And walking past it was the figure of Dr. M.
“Hey, Dr. M,” I called out the window. He stopped and looked around, startled. But he didn’t see me, not at first.
“It’s me, Dr. M. Me, Calledin90s.” He leaned forward as if to see me better. I got out of the car.
“Is something wrong with Angela? Or the baby?”
“No, no not at all, sorry to scare you, it’s nothing like that. I need your help.”
“Oh.” He started walking again, and now it was my turn to be a bit stunned, watching my father-in-law walk away from me. I caught up with him in a few quick strides.
“Listen, I really need your help.”
“And I really need to get to a bridge game.”
“This isn’t about me. It’s about Ray.” That brought him to a halt. He turned to me, angrier even than he’d been the night before.
“Did you drive all the way out here just to make fun of me? To remind me of how you won, distracting me with nonsense about Ray’s case?”
“I mean it,” I said, “I can win Ray’s case. I can prove it in a few words.”
“Prove it, then.” So I did. I spoke words, only a few words, but they were the right words to speak to Dr. M, for the words I spoke were in his language, words that he understood perfectly.
“I understand,” he said, “you’ve come to boast some more, to prove that you were right after all.”
“I want to win Ray’s case, but I don’t have any proof of what I’m saying.”
“You don’t need to prove that two plus two is four.”
“This, I gotta prove, and I need you to help me prove it. I need you to come to court with me, as my witness.”
“I can’t do that. I didn’t witness anything.”
“As my witness. My expert witness.” Unlike a normal witness, an expert witness can give an opinion. An expert is there not to advocate, I explained to Dr. M but to instruct, to teach.
“My bridge partner won’t be very happy,” he said.
“But Ray will, and so will Mrs. M and Angela and--”
“Very well. Do you have a cell phone? We can call the bridge club from my car.”
* * *
We were on the highway getting close to the downtown exit, when my wife called my cell phone. Back then cell phone service was super expensive and my wife only used it for emergencies. Or when she was really angry. I picked up the phone, wondering which it would be.
“I’m so happy that you made things up with my father,” she said.
“How did you know?”
“My mother called. She says you took him with you, that you went out together.”
“He’s with me right now,” I said.
“Where are you going?”
“To court. Going to court to win Ray’s case for him.”
“And you brought my father with you to watch?” She was so happy, I could hear in her voice that she was smiling. “That’s a great way to bond with him, Calledinthe90s. Look, I’m sorry I got so mad at you earlier, I really am. My dad’s a bit too sensitive and--”
“Sorry, Angela, your dad’s not coming to watch me.”
“Why is he with you, then?”
“He’s my witness,” I said.
“What?”
“His expert witness,” Dr. M said, loudly enough for Angela to hear.
My wife’s anger exploded into the phone. She wanted to know how I could expose her elderly, vulnerable father to the stress of a court case. I tried to tell her how I needed him, how there was literally no one else I could turn to, that her father was an expert, a true expert, and the judge was legally bound to believe him, but Angela heard none of this.
“Look,’ I said, “I promise you that--” And then I lowered the phone and pushed the red button, terminating the call. I’d learned that the best way to hang up on someone, was to do it when I was doing the talking. That way it looked like the call had dropped.
“I’m going to steal that move,” Dr. M said.
We rolled into the parking lot. I grabbed the cloth bag out of the back of my car, the bag that held my law robes and shirt and tabs, plus the other stuff I needed for court. It was one-thirty, still thirty minutes to go, not a lot of time to get robed and ready for court. It was just past one-forty five when I, with Dr. M in tow, opened the door to a courtroom on the eighth floor of an old insurance building that had been converted into a courthouse, the home of Commercial Court.
“Commercial Court is an exclusive club,” Cecil-Rowe had explained to me earlier that day, “the legal playground of the rich and powerful. They’ll know instantly that you’re not one of them.” And he was right. It was clear from the moment I walked in that I did not belong, for I was the only lawyer in robes. Everyone else was wearing a suit, and not some cheap thing off the rack like I wore.
There were a half-dozen lawyers present, and after they saw me, they exchanged knowing looks about the stranger amongst them. I ignored them, and walked up to the Registrar. I told him the case I was on, and he signed me in.
“First time in Commercial Court?” he said, eyeing my robes. “You know you don’t have to be robed in Commercial Court.” In other Superior Courts, you always had to bring your robes and get all dressed up. But Commercial Court had its own set of rules, and in the court for rich people, their lawyers did not have to wear robes.
“You’re here on the Sy-Co case?” a young woman asked. She was a junior like me, give a year or two either way. She was dressed in the finest downtown counsel fashion, some designer thing that Angela would know if she saw it.
“Just got retained,” I said.
“You know there’s no adjournments, right? We don’t do adjournments in Commercial Court. I’m just trying to be helpful, because I don’t think you've been here before. You know you don’t have to be robed, right?
“So I heard.”
“So where’s your material? You haven’t served anything, so how do you plan to argue your case?”
“I gotta witness,” I said.
She smiled. “There’s no viva voce evidence, either. Affidavit only.”
“We’ll see what the judge says.” There was a knock from the other side of the door to the judge’s chambers, and then the man himself entered.
I was amazed to see that even the judge wasn’t wearing a robe; instead, he was wearing a light coloured suit and a bright blue bow tie. He was dressed as good as the lawyers, all part of the downtown Commercial Court club, the playground of the richest and most powerful corporations in the City.
“Commercial Court’s not like other courts,” Cecil-Rowe told me earlier that day, explaining that most cases were over in fifteen minutes or less. A plaintiff showed up with some papers, and had a short consultation with the judge. The judge signed an order granting an injunction, or taking away a man’s business, or freezing his money. Commercial Court is where you went to get quick and simple court orders that eviscerated your opponent before the case even got going.
Defendants would appear sometimes in Commercial Court, Cecil-Rowe explained, but it was usually their last time up. Defendants always died a quick death in Commercial Court.
The judge took his seat, and then looked over the lawyers before him. His eyes moved along, and then stopped when they reached me, the one lawyer who was not like the others.
“You don’t need robes in Commercial Court,” the judge said to me.
“I’ll remember that for next time,” I said.
“What case are you on?”
I told him.
“He’s filed no responding materials,” my opponent said, “nothing at all.”
“I’m just vetting the list,” the judge said, “I’ll circle back to you two in a few minutes.” I listend while the judge vetted the rest of the afternoon list: a Mareva, plus a Norwich order, with counsel on those cases sent away in a matter of minutes.
Now the courtroom was almost empty, just the judge, two lawyers, the registrar and my star witness and father-in-law, Dr. M, who sat in the back of the courtroom dressed in an old business suit, put on hastily at his place two hours earlier, when I urged him to hurry it up, to not waste so much time on picking a suit.
“Back to you,” the judge said, addressing my opponent, “I thought this was an uncontested matter. That’s what your confirmation sheet said.”
“I’m sorry, Your Honour, but I didn’t know until I got here that the case was defended.”
“I got retained at the last minute,” I said, “barely three hours ago, the day after I read the papers. But I’m ready to go, ready to argue the case on the merits, so long as you grant me an indulgence, and let me call my witness, to let him testify in person instead of by affidavit, there being no time for me to draft anything.”
Opposing counsel was on her feet. “That’s not how things are done in Commercial Court,” she said, “or any court that I know of, for that matter. My friend (that’s what they make lawyers call each other in court, ‘my friend,’ even though you might hate the other guy’s guts),” the lawyer said, “my friend should have served his responding materials and filed them with the court. Instead, he’s taken us totally by surprise.”
“I’m sorry my friend is surprised by opposition,” I said, “but then consider, it’s my client’s livelihood that’s at stake. If my friend gets her injunction, Ray Telewu’s business is dead, and he loses everything. So yes, my client opposes the injunction, and yes, I’d like to call evidence.”
The judge didn’t consult the papers before him nor the books, but instead, he looked up at the big white clock on the courtroom wall. Its hands said two-fifteen.
“How long will your witness take, counsel?”
“In chief, ten minutes.” I’d practiced with Dr. M on the way in, and I was pretty sure he could do it in five, but I gave him a bit of extra time, just in case.
“We’ve got about two hours,” the judge said, “but I want to be fair to you and your client. Let’s take a fifteen minute recess so you can get instructions. Either we go ahead today with viva voce evidence, or we adjourn, and that will give Calledinthe90s time to file responding materials.”
When everyone came back, the junior’s boss was there, Senior Counsel, a heavy weight, one of those big guys downtown. Plus they brought this guy from Sy-Co Corp, the head of some bullshit division, with some bullshit title, Head of whatever, so that’s the title I’ll give him here. He was The Head. He was the man, the big cheese, the signer of the affidavit on which Sy-Co relied that day.
“What’s he doing here?” I asked Senior Counsel.
He stared at me, all lean and steel grey, looking every inch the hard hitting lawyer that commanded the biggest fees. “If you’re calling a live witness, then so can we. The Head will give evidence today, in advance of your client, so that the judge hears it from him first.” His junior smirked at me, and the two of them sat down, delighted that they’d thought of a way to one up me.
Except that they’d done it by exposing their client to cross-examination. The judge came in, allowed the Head to testify, and when he was done, I stood up.
“Just a few questions,” I said. Senior Counsel was stunned for an instant, and then he stood.
“This serves no purpose, Your Honour. The witness has confirmed the simple facts of his affidavit, and there’s no disputing it. Ray Telewu opened a restaurant less than seventy-one kilometres from Bixity City Hall, and that’s in breach of the Minutes of Settlement he signed.”
I did not bother to respond. Instead, I just stood, and I started to ask questions.
“Have a look at that map in your affidavit,” I said, and he did. I picked up my copy, and tore the map out of it. I passed it up to him.
“What do you notice about this map?”
“That it’s accurate,” the Head said, repeating his evidence in chief, amplifying it, talking about how the map contained perfect measurement.
“You will notice that the map is flat,” I said, laying it on the witness box before him.
“Of course it’s flat. That’s what maps are. Maps are flat.”
“But the earth is round,” I said, “or more properly, a sphere.” Senior Counsel was on his feet in an instant.
“What difference does that make?” he said.
“What you’ll hear from my expert witness, is that a flat map cannot accurately show Earth’s curves. A flat map distorts distances, and in this case, reduces them.”
“But that can’t be by very much.”
“In this case, by just over twenty meters,” Dr. M said from the back of the court.
“That’s my expert witness, the esteemed Dr. M.” I didn’t actually say Dr. M. Instead, I said his real name. But I’m not going to use the real names of my family here, so I’ll just keep calling him Dr. M. “Dr. M was a professor of Physics at the University of Bixity for almost thirty years. He has published numerous papers on particle physics, and is the first Canadian winner of the Wolf Prize for physics.”

• * * *

It went downhill after that for Sy-Co Corp. My father-in-law testified, explaining in simple language, language that even a child could understand, that the Earth was a sphere, that the shortest distance between two points on Earth was a curve, not a straight line. He summarized his calculations in plain English, dumbing down the math, so that everyone present imagined, if only for the moment, that they shared his understanding of a difficult mathematical equation.
Senior Counsel tried to cross-examine Dr. M, but it did not go well, my father-in-law indulging him, gently chiding him, continuing his explanations until the lawyer sat down, defeated by Dr. M’s mastery of the subject,his own lack of preparation and his inability to improvise. When counsel said that he had no further questions, the judge addressed us all.
“I’m not going to reserve, and I don’t think I need to tell everyone why. I think it will take about a minute for me to write a decision saying that the Earth is not flat. I’ll give you some more time after that, but after fifteen minutes, I”ll be back to render my decision.” He rose, everyone bowed, and he disappeared behind the door to judge’s chambers.
I pulled a piece of paper out of my file, and slammed it on the desk before Senior Counsel and his junior. “Fill in the blanks, and sign,” I said.
Dr. M’s head shot up at the commotion, and he shuffled over to see what was going on.
“What’s this?” Senior Counsel said, picking up the paper I gave him..
“Minutes of Settlement. You fill in a number, a big number, for the costs you gotta pay me. Your client signs, and then we’re done.” Senior Counsel opened his mouth to bargain, but I overrode him.
“You know your client’s going to lose; the judge made that obvious. Hurry up if you want to settle; we don’t have much time.”
At the end of most Canadian court cases, the loser has to pay at least part of the winner’s legal fees. That’s the way it’s been since forever, and I think it’s a good rule. Sy-Co Corp had lost, so it had to pay a good chunk of Ray’s costs, and Ray’s costs were somewhere between whatever bullshit figure I claimed they were, and where they actually ought to be. Senior Counsel took the paper over to his client. There was a brief discussion, and then they came back, with the form signed, and a number written in the blank space.
I’ll give it to Sy-Co Corp and their lawyer. It wasn’t a bullshit number, a low ball number. They gave me a real number, a number more like something I’d actually accept, a number that made sense to pay me in costs, in light of the success I’d had, and how I got it. It was a respectful number, a common sense number, and I appreciated it an awful lot.
I tossed the paper back at them.
“Add a zero,” I said, continuing on when Senior Counsel blanched, and his junior retreated a step. “I know what’s going on here. Your client sold mine a bullshit franchise, one with a history of failing.” The franchise had opened up again under a new owner not long after Ray had lost it and then it promptly failed again. Like I said at the start of this story, it’s an old story. It’s how some franchise companies make money. “Your client makes more money selling bullshit franchises doomed to fail, then it does from the honest ones that make money. So add a zero to that number, or Ray’s gonna sue you, class action and all that, for all the people you’ve fucked.”
The Head stepped forward from the benches and spoke to me.
“We get threats like that all the time, but no one follows through. They don’t have the money to fight us, and neither does your client. So go ahead and sue.”
“It’s true that Ray doesn’t have jack shit,” I said, “not a pot to piss in, but he’s my cousin, Ray is, and even if he doesn’t have money, he’s got me. Ray’s family, and for Ray, I’ll sue you guys for free. Hell, I’ll even pay the expenses. Plus I’m gonna put a jury notice in, too, come to think of it, ‘cause juries--”
Senior Counsel cut me off, and moved his client to the back of the courtroom. There was a brief discussion, and then they came back. I watched as Senior Counsel wrote a single digit on the Minutes, a zero, written right where I wanted it.
“You’ll have to initial the change,” I said to the Head of Sy-C0, and it gave me great satisfaction to watch him sign.
“Don’t forget,” I said the moment his pen stopped moving, “for the settlement to be valid, I need to get the money today. Right now.”
“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?” the Head said.
“Not if you want the settlement to stay in place. I’ll follow you back to your office, and you can put a cheque in my hands.”

• * * *

“What’s this?” my wife said when I entered the apartment later that day, after I’d driven Dr. M home, stopping first at a local pub for beers.
“It’s an absurdly expensive bunch of flowers,” I said, “although no flowers, however beautiful, however expensive, could expiate my--”
She took the flowers, and gave a kiss.
“My mom called. She told me what happened. You fixed things with my dad.”
“Yup,” I said. I had certainly done that. I’d made Dr. M a professor again, if only for a few minutes. Not only a professor, but an expert witness. The judge had declared him an expert in plain terms and Dr.M had beamed when he’d heard those words.
“And you won Ray’s case, too. But my mom didn’t know how, and I don’t know how you did it either.”
“I’ll tell you over dinner tonight,” I said.
“But we agreed no more dinners out; we have to save money, now that a baby’s coming.”
I passed her the envelope that I’d received a few hours before. She opened it, and took out a cheque, a cheque drawn up for an amount I specified, made payable to Mr. and Mrs. Calledinthe90s.
The moment I got that cheque, all I could think about was how my wife would react when I put it into her hands. I could not wait to see her eyes bulge, to hear her voice say “oh my god,” to hear her laugh.
She did none of these things. Instead, she cried.
“Does this mean we can buy a house?” The money wouldn’t be enough to buy a house, not nowadays, with prices being so crazy. But things were different back then in the 90s. Sure, the internet was barely a thing and cell phones were super expensive and a lot of things sucked, but I’ll give the nineties one thing: houses were cheap.
“I think so,” I said.

I’m not sure how to start this other than saying that I feel really ‘meh’ about this situation.
I don’t feel anxious, or nervous, but I’m not sure how to articulate my feelings without inevitably feeling misunderstood. For context—I was accepted (and will be attending) into the University at Buffalo. Ever since I was a kid, I told myself I would not end up at University at Buffalo. I’d grown up around 20 minutes away from the campus, so maybe I had subconsciously dismissed it as boring, or under-achieving. I digress. I know UB is a T100 school and all, but is it really all that great? I know some people that really enjoy it, but I can’t get myself to be excited for the ‘UB experience’.
I was accepted for Biomedical Sciences, but my intentions are to switch to Neuroscience (either way, I’m on a pre-med track). Both are good programs, but it just doesn’t feel right. My mom and Sister can both tell that I’m not super excited about my decision, so in attempt to cheer me up, we drove around campus and tried to envision my future. I could see myself succeeding there, but just… not really enjoying it. Originally, I was supposed to dorm with 1 of my friends that is also attending UB, but for cost reasons, he’s recently decided that he won’t dorm with me. I’ve found a new roommate, but I’m still pretty devastated over the fact that I won’t be dorming with the only person I want to dorm with.
Overall, I’m just kinda going through the motions of things. Not excited, but not nervous either. I know I will succeed if I try my best, but I just can’t see myself being overly happy spending my next 4 years of life at UB.
If anyone could speak on behalf of their experiences, or prestige of UB compared to other schools I think that would put my mind at ease. Thanks guys :)

Need help figuring out a career
Hi everyone. I graduated with my bachelors in biology in 2023 I’m currently 22 years old, almost 23, and been out of school for the last year while trying to figure out my life post graduation. I originally went to school in the hopes of becoming a doctor and going to medical school, then switched to pre-PA from a combination of the intimidation of debt/4 years of more school and years of residency. But while getting my patient care experience after graduation (required to apply to PA school) I realized I hated the office setting and patient interaction. I’ve since been working in retail while trying to figure out life.
Recently I interviewed for a 1 year MRI tech program (because I don’t have to deal with patients as much and my interests in physics and imaging) and got accepted to start next fall. However I did have to register at my local community college this summer for some pre-requesite classes which start in a week. Today I was going through some of the things I need before starting the course and the same uncertainty I felt with going to medical school my senior year have started to set in now that I have to come to terms with reality again and deal with this. Looking over all the course material and syllabus was daunting and made me realize maybe I wasn’t as ready as I thought in making this decision — I still don’t even think I actually wanted to do the MRI program at all I just felt forced to do something with the degree I felt I wasted 4 years getting. But I have no motivation or interest to start these summer courses (similar to how I felt I had the potential to excel in med school but just lacked the motivation and true passion that would’ve made it a long 4 years) and I feel it’s a warning sign rather than what some may think is me being scared of a challenge (I’m definitely not I was in honors in college and graduated with a 3.96 GPA highest in my program). I also just had 2 more surgeries (for a total of 7 in my lifetime) and each has done the opposite for me opposed to others — instead of enforcing interest in medicine I’ve become so agitated by it.
At this point I don’t know if I should continue with the program and summer courses and see how i feel as it goes or back out now and take more time to figure out my life. I’m definitely an over thinker but if I can get the few grand I already paid in tuition back for a full refund it may be worth it to take the extra time to decide. Only reason I’m hesitant about it is I actually have been finding a real interest lately in going to pharmacy school where I would need these pre requisites also, but again I’m intimidated by that kind of toxic culture where students are overworked and abused and I’m burnt out of the idea having to study 12 hours a day (obviously the only careers I seem to have considered are science/healthcare because all I was good at in school and had some interest in was science and maybe that’s my problem trying to force my hand into a “respectable career” — also yes I have considered research and it’s not for me I didn’t enjoy the research process in college during my honors thesis).
All I know is I have the capability to succeed in anything I do it’s just figuring out what that is for me. All that matters to me at the end of the day is I would like to have a good work life balance and make a decent amount of money but not to live luxuries more because I’m very much a family man and would like to support my own one day to have a comfortable life and go on vacations and stuff I never was able to as a kid. I’m a bit of an introvert but can also be very social, but I don’t enjoy dealing with complex personalities that I’ve learned in my patient care and retail experiences so something like management and HR wouldn’t work for me. Another thing I’ve been thinking is even if I might enjoy something like accounting if I don’t want to go to 4 years more of med school I probably don’t want to spend 4 more years pursuing another bachelors and MBA… I’m not a very creative person either so I don’t think something like engineering architecture of entrepreneurship would benefit me. Something I was once considering bc it was suggested to me was becoming a chef but 1) even though I enjoy cooking I enjoy like making dinner for myself I don’t think I would enjoy the professional kitchen environment and 2) my cousin went to culinary school and basically for the same reasons ended up doing nothing with it and now has some social services government pension job. Speaking of pension jobs I considered teaching and police which is the career of choice for my aunts and uncles, but I couldn’t personally handle teaching because of the kids crazy parents and restricting curriculums and i can’t be a cop where I live because I’m colorblind and honestly think I wouldn’t be taken seriously as one. One thing I would’ve loved to do is commercial real estate I’ve talked about it a lot as a possibility one day with my best friend but the problem is I have no idea on getting started with that without needing the capital.
I know this is very long but thank you for reading all this and any help would be greatly appreciated. I’m physically exhausted and drained from feeling confused and a loser for having no direction.

I would like to start this off by saying I'm sorry; this is a long one, and I appreciate any advice or help I can get. Also, to anyone willing to read this, thank you so much! I'm currently looking for a new job but having no luck, so I'm trying to also improve my current situation as much as I can.
I’m 28 and work in California for a school district in IT, and I love IT. The only problem is my boss. I've worked this job for almost 5 years now, and he has been the boss at this school district for almost 10 years. He's really good at the IT side of his job, but as a manager, not so much. He likes to call his employees morons, yell at and reprimand employees in front of coworkers. He's now caused several employees to quit or seek therapy (including myself). One time, I was sitting in my office working on a project, and he yelled across the office, "Gojo, get your ass in here," for the whole office to hear, and then proceeded to chew me out with the office door open and the entire office listening. He believes fear is a good management tool, which isn't really my style. His current thing to do is trying to pit us against each other and talk trash about other employees when they aren’t around. He micro manages everything you do and calls you stupid if you aren’t doing something exactly the way he wants you to. If there is a way you can save literally TWO seconds on a task and you aren’t doing it that way, he gets upset. After he does all of that, then he tries to be nice and talk about video games with you or buy the office food or let people go home 20 minutes early, but then it’s right back to the usual harassment.
Almost a year ago, I interviewed for and got the open Tech II position, promoted from Tech I. At the time, I was interested because I would learn a lot of things that would help me get different jobs, and it was a little more money. I regretted this promotion really early on. I dread coming to work and several times almost quit on the spot with no job lined up. Therapy has helped a lot with these emotions.
Outside of my boss being terrible, he also piles on work and gives the line, "You’re a Tech II now; you should be able to do all of this," or "You’re a Tech II; you have to figure out how to balance all the work." Currently, I’m balancing 12 projects, providing tech support for our district office, working as an escalation point for our Tech I’s(we have 4 soon to be 6 and they support 15 schools), and assisting our network admin with his projects. While I’m trying to do all that, my boss is also yelling from across the hall, adding more tasks that he needs me to work on and needs to be done that day. As a Tech I, your main task was working on help tickets for about 3 schools, and then during the summer, you helped with some projects. This promotion got me a whole $2 an hour increase in pay.
I am currently working on getting a new job. I’m applying for city, county, and state IT positions, but they take months before they even start interviewing for those positions, and the entire process is taking a long time. In the meantime, I’m reaching out to my union to see if I’m able to demote back down to Tech I. That doesn’t help with the boss situation, but it does help with the lack of compensation for all the extra work.
As far as my boss goes, I want to report him to HR, but I have no physical evidence, and most of my coworkers are afraid. I’m starting to document in my notes every time he is inappropriate, the date and time of that incident, and who was a witness. He’s pretty smart about how he does everything, nothing in writing, no emails, or texts. If I do report him, it has to be enough to actually get him fired. I’ve been told teachers have reported him to HR in the past, then HR has told his boss, and then his boss tells him about who reported him, and nothing has ever come out of it. He likes to hire people new to the industry or really young people so they are less likely to push back at him or are too intimidated to report him. He has bragged to us several times about how if he ever did get fired he’s taking people down with him because he knows all the districts dirty secrets.
How can I legally obtain evidence of his abuse? What should I know about reporting bosses to HR? I don’t know what to do anymore. I really appreciate anyone who took the time to read through this. I have plenty more examples of his abuse if anyone needs more, this was already a really long post so I didn't want to add more.
TL:DR My boss is abusive and has made several people quiet. I’m being overworked and not being equally compensated. How do I Get him fired?

OOC: co-written with NotTooSunny
It was an ordinary day at the New York City Library. People wandered in and out of the building, unaware of the monster that lurked among them.
The only people who seemed to know the danger these mortals were in were Harper and Amon, who entered the building with glowing bronze swords at their hips. The bulky weapons seemed to have escaped the notice of the other library patrons, which was a good thing. The job description had made it clear that they were meant to remain inconspicuous in completing their task.
Harper had traded her usual bright orange camp shirt for a more discrete cropped black t-shirt and pleated pants. She had been insistent on coming up with a persona for them on the train ride from Montauk Station into New York City. They were meant to act as high school students researching for a World History paper on Ancient Greece. Now that they were inside the library, she had stopped her incessant rambling to peruse a riddle book, in what she had insisted was preparation for their job.
As they wandered through the bookshelves, she remained absorbed in the dog-eared children’s book, thumbing through the pages to find a riddle that would be fitting of a sphinx.
“Here’s one, Amon,” she said, narrowly avoiding a collision with another library patron as she read, “What is something that runs but never walks, has a mouth but never talks, has a head but never weeps, has a bed but never sleeps?”
The dark-haired son of Apollo glanced over from a shelf of dusty atlases, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly. “That is an easy one,” he replied simply. "River. Try me with something more challenging next time around." He adjusted the collar of his striped button down, which he had layered with a navy blue sweater in preparation for the chill of the air-conditioned interior.
“The real riddle is where we can find this sphinx,” Amon glanced around the spacious reading area, eyeing the dark wooden staircase with its ornate railings. “The boyfriend and girlfriend who tried this last time, they found her by a bookcase.”
“A bookcase,” Harper repeated derisively, closing her book to theatrically scan their surroundings. “That narrows it down.”
Ignoring Harper’s mockery, the son of Apollo paused suddenly, his dark eyes glazing over with concentration. His hearing dulled, the surrounding footsteps and rustling pages fading into the background as if muffled by a thick curtain. Amon searched for the energy signature of the monster he knew lurked among the mortals. It was a subtle shift, like trying to discern a whisper in a crowded room, but he felt a faint, abnormal energy hanging somewhere up above.
“I say we try the second floor,” he said as he snapped out of the tracking trance, offering no other explanation to Harper.
“We could do that, sure,” Harper said, words laced with blatant doubt at his sudden certainty. “I say we try asking the Visitor’s Center. I know she's supposed to be disguised by the Mist, but the librarians have to have noticed something.”
“You can go ahead and do that.” The small smirk from earlier was now spreading across his face. “But you can’t be upset if I find the sphinx and solve her riddle before you even get there.”
Harper rolled her eyes, but she made no attempt to stop Amon from walking towards the staircase. After a moment she set off after him, footsteps even against the wooden steps.
Up on the second floor, Amon moved quietly, his dark eyes scanning the hallway for anything out of the ordinary.
I know you’re up here.
He stopped at every heavy-looking mahogany door, peering through each muted glass insert. He felt the air grow thicker with ominous energy at every step, so he knew the monster must be near.
One of the doors was slightly ajar, a suspiciously open invitation. Or a trap. The dark-haired boy caught sight of a cat-shaped figure on the other side before ducking down and motioning sharply for Harper’s attention. He unsheathed his kopis from his belt, bracing himself for confrontation.
Harper crouched against the wall, hand on the hilt of her sword as she tried to peek through the frosted glass pane. She held her breath, ready to move at Amon’s signal. He held out three fingers and then put them down one by one. When he hit zero, they stood in unison, flinging the door open together.
When Amon and Harper stepped inside, the body of the sphinx lay motionless on the floor.
The rest of the room was in disarray, littered with disheveled chairs and broken bits of chalk. A window on the other side of the room had been forced open, the curtain fluttering in the wind.
“No way,” Harper said. The door clicked shut behind her as she pushed past Amon into the room and kneeled to study the monster’s limp figure.
The sphinx had the large body of a lion and the eerily human face of a middle-aged woman, hair tied back in a severe bun and foundation caked onto her high cheekbones. Fangs jutted out of her red-painted lips, and eagle wings sprouted out of the space between her shoulder blades, folded tight against her back.
“Monsters dissolve into dust when they die,” Amon remarked, keeping his distance as he watched the subtle rise and fall of the monster’s ribs. “She must have been knocked unconscious.”
“Right,” Harper agreed, “The real question is who. And why.”
She hovered a hand over the cat's shoulder, set on rousing her. Before she made contact, the sphinx's eyes snapped open, round irises surrounded by shocking yellow sclera.
"Slain!" she wailed. Harper staggered backwards. Amon’s arms instinctively reached out to catch her, but she didn’t stumble near enough to make contact. "I am slain!"
With feline grace, the sphinx rose to her feet. A white tape outline marked the placement of her previously prone body on the floor. The muscles in her legs rippled as she paced in front of Harper and Amon, massive velvet paws silent against the carpet.
"And you, my dear heroes," she roared, eyes narrowed in an accusatory glare, "were too late to save me!"
The sphinx sniffed, composing herself. She leapt onto a wooden table. The table legs creaked underneath her weight. "Fear not," she tutted, "Fear not. For you can still avenge me. If you are able to determine the murderer and their weapon, then I will obtain justice, and all will be right with the world.”
“Your riddle is a murder mystery,” Harper said, confusion written across her face. Amon raised an eyebrow. The sphinx chuffed, a low rumbling sound reminiscent of laughter.
“You sought that hackneyed question about man? The Sphinx that the storytellers remember is far less adaptive than I am. I am not interested in your ability to regurgitate the information you have read. Nor am I interested in taking advantage of the nonsensical rules of your English language.”
“I am here to satisfy my own curiosity: does modern mankind still possess the ability to engage in deductive reasoning, or do they only seek to make themselves appear intelligent? Do not speak,” the sphinx said, a pointed look at Harper, who had opened her mouth to interject, “You will answer my questions when you play my game.”
“The potential murder weapons are scattered throughout this room,” she continued, leaping off the table. “And the suspects have already provided their testimonies for your review. Rest assured, I have made certain that their statements contain no lies.”
A shimmering, translucent energy began to swirl around Harper and Amon’s feet, beginning to take shape as holograms with a flickering, ephemeral quality.
A projection of Cerberus materialized first, his three massive heads snarling and snapping in unison. A ribbon of text appeared by his paws to translate his growling: "I was guarding the entrance, my duty unbroken."
Next came the Minotaur, his towering form pacing within the labyrinth on Crete. He snorted and pawed at the ground, the holographic maze shifting behind him in the background. The translation text appeared: "Confined within these walls, no escape for me."
Lamia's projection flickered into view, her serpentine lower half coiled around her as she wept in her cave. She glanced mournfully at the holographic images of her lost children: "My grief consumes me, innocent of this crime."
A shimmering Hydra emerged next, its nine heads snapping at invisible foes. Each one moved independently, showcasing its ability to act on its own. The translation for the hissing head at the center read: "Engaged in battle, I could not have killed."
Typhon materialized with a thunderous roar, his colossal form fighting against restraints under Mount Etna. His immense size and power were palpable, even in scaled down holographic form: "Bound by chains of the earth, I could not have roamed free."
Echidna’s hologram appeared last, her form a mix of human and serpent, lounging in a dimly lit cave. She looked directly at the viewers, her expression both defiant and amused. The translation text by her side read: “I dwell in my lair, uninvolved in such petty affairs.”
The sphinx swiped at the last projection as it faded, deeming her handiwork satisfactory. “There is not enough information to deduce the killer using evidence alone. Because I am fair, I will provide you with three hints before your final guess. Be forewarned: if you fail to provide a correct answer, you will both perish. Is this understood?”
Harper spoke. “If we answer correctly, you will leave this library for good.”
“If you answer correctly, I will permanently relocate. It is a preferable option in comparison to another death. Now, do you agree to the terms and conditions?” the sphinx said primly, regarding Harper and Amon with casual disdain. The pair nodded. “Very well.”
The sphinx dropped onto the floor and let her head loll back, pretending to be dead once more.
Hint #1

Suspects	Weapons
Cerberus	The Shirt of Nessus
The Minotaur	Siren Song
Lamia	Harpy Talon
The Hydra	Celestial Bronze Sword
Typhon	A-C Encyclopedia
Echidna	Cerberus Fang

Soon after the Sphinx had laid back down, Harper and Amon began to scour the room. A small pile of prospective murder weapons formed on a nearby table.
“We can easily eliminate the siren song,” Amon rushed to speak over Harper, eyeing the small glass vial of swirling gray matter that they had found nestled behind a row of books on metalworking. “It is a luring mechanism, not a murder weapon.”
“We could rule out Cerberus’ fang too,” he pointed at the enormous yellowing tooth, about the size of the small baseball bat Amon used to have when he played in the little league. “If we take the hologram as ground truth, all of his teeth were intact there.”
Harper used her kopis to prod at the stained tunic that had been hidden in a desk drawer, being careful not to touch it with bare skin. “The Shirt of Nessus is a viable option. It would be easy for any of the suspects to lay it down and wait for the hydra venom to kick in.”
“I am not ready to rule out the bronze sword either,” Amon noted. “Monsters have access to heroes and the weapons they leave behind.”
“Most of these monsters don’t even have opposable thumbs,” Harper argued, running a hand over the sword they had found by a power outlet. ”They don’t have the dexterity to wield a sword.”
“I do not imagine that the technicality would be that granular.”
Harper laughed. “Oh, the number of teeth in the Cerberus hologram tell all, but we’re drawing the line at opposable thumbs.”
“I suppose that that logic would also rule out the harpy talon and the encyclopedia easily as well,” Amon admitted. “Which would be too easy.”
“I’m just that good at logical deduction.” Harper said proudly. “If my assumption is correct, then the poisoned shirt is the only one that makes sense.”
Amon scoffed, folding his arms across his chest as his dark eyes bored into Harper. “It would not necessarily matter what our first guess would be anyway.”
“Can you provide an argument for any other weapon? Or are you intent on purposely making an illogical guess?” she countered cooly.
“Fine,” Amon acquiesced. “Since you are so adamant about the shirt, we can guess the shirt, and be incorrect. It does not matter. What about the suspects themselves?” He clasped his hands behind his back, his steps measured as he started to pace across the plush red carpet of the room.
Harper smiled, smugly accepting her victory. She strode towards a chalkboard at the side of the study room, inscribing the list of weapons and suspects with a fresh piece of white chalk.
“All of them have alibis,“ she began. “I think that-”
“Some make more sense than others,” Amon spoke over Harper, irritated by her minor triumph. “Cerberus, for example, is under the service of Hades. He says he did not leave his post, and he could not have done so without permission or dire consequences on the process of the dead.”
Harper silently seethed as Amon spoke, meeting his rationale with reluctant acceptance before starting again in a louder, exaggerated tone. “I think that the ones with the shakiest alibis are Lamia, the Minotaur, Typhon, and Echidna. No witnesses can confirm their locations. In fact, Lamia provides no location at all.” Harper circled those names. She looked at Amon with a forced smile, allowing him a moment to provide more commentary.
“Lamia? Well,” there was a hint of mockery in the sneer that tugged on the corner of Amon’s lips. “I would imagine her emotions rendered her… Too fragile and unstable to carry out such an act.”
“You’re kidding,” Harper scoffed, searching Amon's face for the slightest hint that he was joking. “Her grief is what moved her to kill children in the first place. I doubt it would suddenly be incapacitating. She’s just appealing to your sense of superiority, and I can’t believe that you’re falling for it.”
"It is not about superiority. It is about logic," Amon retorted, bristling in defense. “You cannot deny that emotions cloud judgment. Maybe the sphinx wants us to leverage our knowledge about her past crimes to reason that she was not thinking clearly in this case either.” Amon had no other evidence that pointed towards Lamia as the top suspect, but he had dug deep enough where he was now ready to stand firm in his reasoning.
“Murder,” Harper countered, eyes narrowed in a venomous stare, “-does not require you to think clearly. Haven’t you heard of a crime of passion? If anyone’s judgment is clouded right now, Amon, it’s yours.”
The son of Apollo squared his shoulders, his expression hardening. "I understand the concept of crimes of passion, thank you.” His dark-eyed stare returned Harper's gaze, unflinching at the intensity. “But our investigation must be rooted in facts, not assumptions based on emotions. And the facts are,” he resumed his pacing once more, “that Lamia cannot be the culprit, as she is the only suspect that openly admits to being innocent of this crime.”
Amon had considered this from the very start, but provoking Harper like this had proved to be far more amusing.
Harper crossed Lamia’s name off of the board. She swallowed down her anger, fighting the urge to continue pressing the issue in favor of returning to their list of suspects. She pointed her piece of chalk at the next names on the list. “The Minotaur and Typhon are trapped, or so they say. How could they have done anything?”
“Their alibis revolve around their inability to escape,” Amon pointed out. “Not that they were unable to commit murder. The Labyrinth, in fact,” he raised a dramatic finger, “has several moving passages that could have permitted the Minotaur to move and commit murder without an official escape.”
Harper considered his words for a long moment, trying to find the flaw in his reasoning. Seeing none, she placed a dot next to the Minotaurs's name.
“Typhon escaped his prison in the Second Titanomachy. He could do it again,” Harper said thoughtfully. “Though I don’t understand why he would do something like this. He’s the Sphinx's father. The same goes for Echidna.”
Amon, who had been nodding at Harper’s assessment of Typhon’s abilities, pursed his lips at her observation of parentage. “I do not see how this could possibly be relevant to the logical puzzle at hand.”
Harper spoke slowly, as if the answer was obvious. “What motive would they have to kill their own daughter?”
“Harper,” Amon began curtly, folding his arms across his chest. “Half of the Greek myths revolve around immortals killing their own children.”
“Then we should pick one of them,” Harper declared, pivoting her argument instead of admitting her logical blunder. “They would have more of a motive than the rest of the suspects, if anything.”
“The Minotaur can escape much more easily than Typhon can. Motive aside, it is the most logical guess,” Amon concluded, adjusting his collar haughtily. “I will remind you that we picked your choice of weapon. It is only fair that I select the monster.”
“Fine.” Harper agreed, her gaze stormy as she turned back towards the sphinx. “We accuse the Minotaur of killing the sphinx with the Shirt of Nessus.”
The sphinx opened one eye. “None of these are correct!”
Hint #2

Suspects	Weapons
Cerberus	The Shirt of Nessus
The Minotaur	Siren Song
Lamia	Harpy Talon
The Hydra	Celestial Bronze Sword
Typhon	A-C Encyclopedia
Echidna	Cerberus Fang

“Two more hints left.” Harper announced, crossing off the Minotaur’s name and the poisoned shirt on the chalkboard with a flourish. It was not ideal that her initial logical deductions had been incorrect, but at least Amon had also been wrong. She couldn't resist a snide comment. “I knew it wasn’t the Minotaur.”
“So you still think it’s Typhon.” Choosing to ignore Harper’s taunting, Amon rested his hand on a nearby desk, studying the lists on the chalkboard before him. He had taken the Minotaur error as a personal failure, and was determined to get the suspect right this time.
“I do.”
“Why not Echidna?”
“She’s too emotional to kill someone, obviously.” Harper said sarcastically. “Her frail female arms are probably too weak to even hold a weapon.”
The dark-haired boy rolled his eyes. “Objectively,” he began, ignoring her quip once more, “Typhon could not have lied about his inability to roam free. A natural disaster freed him from Mount Etna during the Second Titanomachy, but he could not recreate those conditions on his own.” Though his tone remained aloof, it was clear that Amon was relishing in the opportunity to flaunt his mythology knowledge.
“Maybe,” Harper argued, stubborn. “But Echidna’s statement was less ambiguous than his. Typhon just explains his predicament; he doesn't provide a real claim. Echidna explicitly says she was not involved.” She thought for a few more moments, rolling the piece of chalk in her hands. “Echidna could have released him? They would be accomplices.”
Amon shook his head. “There was a single murderer. Not two. The sphinx would not lie about the premise of the game.”
Harper stared at him coldly, but could offer no rebuttal. She turned her attention to the board. “Typhon is a giant. He’s capable of using the sword.”
“But the specificity of Echidna’s denial is still incredibly suspicious. ‘Petty affairs’ is a strange way to phrase a murder. But,” Amon added reluctantly, “I understand the logic behind Typhon. I suppose it is your turn to choose the monster, and we will still have another guess to work with.”
“As for the weapon,” he continued, “I still think the sword is the most viable option, given that the siren song and the fang can be ruled out and the shirt with the venom was, well,” Amon pursed his lips, fighting the urge to smile, “incorrect.”
Before Harper could interject, Amon turned towards the sphinx at the front of the room. “We accuse Typhon of killing the sphinx with a Celestial Bronze Sword.”
“One of these is correct!”
Hint #3

Suspects	Weapons
Cerberus	The Shirt of Nessus
The Minotaur	Siren Song
Lamia	Harpy Talon
The Hydra	Celestial Bronze Sword
Typhon	A-C Encyclopedia
Echidna	Cerberus Fang

“Aha!” Amon raised a triumphant finger before pointing it at Harper. “I told you,” he gloated, “Typhon had no escape route.”
“You were right,” Harper admitted, staring down at the carpet so that she would not have to look at his smug expression.
“Let’s get this over with,” she muttered, and turned back towards the lioness with crossed arms. “We accuse Echidna of killing the sphinx with a Celestial Bronze Sword”
“One of these is correct,” the sphinx announced. Her mouth twisted in amusement, fangs bared in a menacing smile.
READ PART 2 HERE

In the ’80s, the spy agency investigated the "Gateway Experience" technique to alter consciousness and ultimately escape spacetime.
The intrigue revolves around a classified 1983 CIA report on a technique called the Gateway Experience, which is a training system designed to focus brainwave output to alter consciousness and ultimately escape the restrictions of time and space.
The CIA was interested in all sorts of psychic research at the time, including the theory of applications of remote viewing, which is when someone views real events with only the power of their mind. The documents have since been declassified and are available to view.
This is a comprehensive excavation of The Gateway Process report. The first section provides a timeline of the key historical developments that led to the CIA’s investigation and subsequent experimentations. The second section is a review of The Gateway Process report. It opens with a wall of theoretical context, on the other side of which lies enough understanding to begin to grasp the principles underlying the Gateway Experience training. The last section outlines the Gateway technique itself and the steps that go into achieving spacetime transcendence.
Let’s go.
THE TIMELINE
• 1950s - Robert Monroe, a radio broadcasting executive, begins producing evidence that specific sound patterns have identifiable effects on human capabilities. These include alertness, sleepiness, and expanded states of consciousness.
• 1956 - Monroe forms an R&D division inside his radio program production corporation RAM Enterprises. The goal is to study sound’s effect on human consciousness. He was obsessed with “Sleep-Learning," or hypnopedia, which exposes sleepers to sound recordings to boost memory of previously learned information.
• 1958 - While experimenting with Sleep-Learning, Monroe discovers an unusual phenomenon. He describes it as sensations of paralysis and vibration accompanied by bright light. It allegedly happens nine times over the proceeding six weeks, and culminates in an out-of-body experience (OBE).
• 1962 - RAM Enterprises moves to Virginia, and renames itself Monroe Industries. It becomes active in radio station ownership, cable television, and later in the production and sale of audio cassettes. These cassettes contain applied learnings from the corporate research program, which is renamed The Monroe Institute.
• 1971 - Monroe publishes Journeys Out of the Body, a book that is credited with popularizing the term “out-of-body experience.”
• 1972 - A classified report circulates in the U.S. military and intelligence communities. It claims that the Soviet Union is pouring money into research involving ESP and psychokinesis for espionage purposes.
• 1975 - Monroe registers the first of several patents concerning audio techniques designed to stimulate brain functions until the left and right hemispheres become synchronized. Monroe dubs the state "Hemi-Sync" (hemispheric synchronization), and claims it could be used to promote mental well-being or to trigger an altered state of consciousness.
• 1978 to 1984 - Army veteran Joseph McMoneagle contributes to 450 remote viewing missions under Project Stargate. He is known as “Remote View No. 1”.
• June 9th, 1983 - The CIA report "Analysis and Assessment of The Gateway Process" is produced. It provides a scientific framework for understanding and expanding human consciousness, out-of-body experiments, and other altered states of mind.
• 1989 - Remote viewer Angela Dellafiora Ford helps track down a former customs agent who has gone on the run. She pinpoints his location as “Lowell, Wyoming”. U.S. Customs apprehend him 100 miles west of a Wyoming town called Lovell.
• 2003 - The CIA approves declassification of the Gateway Process report.
• 2017 - The CIA declassifies 12 million pages of records revealing previously unknown details about the program, which would eventually become known as Project Stargate.
THE REPORT
Personnel
The author of The Gateway Process report is Lieutenant Colonel Wayne M. McDonnell, hereon referred to simply as Wayne. There isn’t a tremendous amount of information available on the man, nor any photographs. In 1983, Wayne was tasked by the Commander of the U.S. Army Operational Group with figuring out how The Gateway Experience, astral projection and out-of-body experiences work. Wayne partnered with a bunch of different folks to produce the report, most notably Itzhak Bentov, a very Googleable American-Israeli scientist who helped pioneer the biomedical engineering industry.
A scientific approach
From the outset of the report, Wayne states his intent to employ an objective scientific method in order to understand the Gateway process. The various scientific avenues he takes include:
• A biomedical inquiry to understand the physical aspects of the process.
• Information on quantum mechanics to describe the nature and functioning of human consciousness.
• Theoretical physics to explain the time-space dimension and means by which expanded human consciousness transcends it.
• Classical physics to bring the whole phenomenon of out-of-body states into the language of physical science (and remove the stigma of an occult connotation).
Methodological frames of reference
Before diving into the Gateway Experience, Wayne develops a frame of reference by dissecting three discrete consciousness-altering methodologies. He’s basically saying, there’s no way you’re going to get through The Gateway without a solid grounding in the brain-altering techniques that came before it.
1) He begins with hypnosis. The language is extremely dense, but the basic gist is as follows: the left side of the brain screens incoming stimuli, categorizing, assessing and assigning meaning to everything through self-cognitive, verbal, and linear reasoning. The left hemisphere then dishes the carefully prepared data to the non-critical, holistic, pattern-oriented right hemisphere, which accepts everything without question. Hypnosis works by putting the left side to sleep, or at least distracting it long enough to allow incoming data direct, unchallenged entry to the right hemisphere. There, stimuli can reach the sensor and motor cortices of the right brain, which corresponds to points in the body. Suggestions then can send electrical signals from the brain to certain parts of the body. Directing these signals appropriately, according to the report, can elicit reactions ranging from left leg numbness to feelings of happiness. Same goes for increased powers of concentration.
2) Wayne continues with a snapshot of transcendental meditation. He distinguishes it from hypnotism. Through concentration the subject draws energy up the spinal cord, resulting in acoustical waves that run through the cerebral ventricles, to the right hemisphere, where they stimulate the cerebral cortex, run along the homunculus and then to the body. The waves are the altered rhythm of heart sounds, which create sympathetic vibrations in the walls of the fluid-filled cavities of the brain’s ventricles. He observed that the symptoms begin in the left side of the body, confirming the right brain’s complicity. Bentov also states that the same effect might be achieved by prolonged exposure to 4 - 7 Hertz/second acoustical vibrations. He suggests standing by an air conditioning duct might also do the trick. (David’s Lynch and other celebrities are committed adherents to transcendental meditation today.)
3) Biofeedback, on the other hand, uses the left hemisphere to gain access to the right brain’s lower cerebral, motor, and sensory cortices. Whereas hypnosis suppresses one side of the brain, and TM bypasses that side altogether, biofeedback teaches the left hemisphere to visualize the desired result, recognize the feelings associated with right hemisphere access, and ultimately achieve the result again. With repetition, the left brain can reliably key into the right brain, and strengthen the pathways so that it can be accessed during a conscious demand mode. A digital thermometer is subsequently placed on a target part of the body. When its temperature increases, objective affirmation is recognized and the state is reinforced. Achieving biofeedback can block pain, enhance feeling, and even suppress tumors, according to the report.
The Gateway mechanics
With that, Wayne takes a first stab at the Gateway process. He classifies it as a “training system designed to bring enhanced strength, focus and coherence to the amplitude and frequency of brainwave output between the left and right hemispheres so as to alter consciousness.”
What distinguishes the Gateway process from hypnosis, TM, and biofeedback, is that it requires achieving a state of consciousness in which the electrical brain patterns of both hemispheres are equal in amplitude and frequency. This is called Hemi-Sync. Lamentably, and perhaps conveniently, we cannot as humans achieve this state on our own. The audio techniques developed by Bob Monroe and his Institute (which are comprised as a series of tapes). claim to induce and sustain Hemi-Sync.
Wayne employs the analogy of a lamp versus a laser. Left to its own devices the human mind expends energy like a lamp, in a chaotic and incoherent way, achieving lots of diffusion but relatively little depth. Under Hemi-Sync though, the mind produces a “disciplined stream of light.” So, once the frequency and amplitude of the brain are rendered coherent it can then synchronize with the rarified energy levels of the universe. With this connection intact, the brain begins to receive symbols and display astonishing flashes of holistic intuition.
The Hemi-Sync technique takes advantage of a Frequency Following Response (FFR). It works like this: an external frequency emulating a recognized one will cause the brain to mimic it. So if a subject hears a frequency at the Theta level, it will shift from its resting Beta level. To achieve these unnatural levels, Hemi-Sync puts a single frequency in the left ear and a contrasting frequency in the right. The brain then experiences the Delta frequency, also known as the beat frequency. It’s more familiarly referred to these days as binaural beats. With the FFR and beat frequency phenomena firmly in place, The Gateway Process introduces a series of frequencies at marginally audible, subliminal levels. With the left brain relaxed and the body in a virtual sleep state, the conditions are ideal to promote brainwave outputs of higher and higher amplitude and frequency. Alongside subliminal suggestions from Bob Monroe (naturally), the subject can then alter their consciousness.
The Gateway system only works when the audio, which is introduced through headphones, is accompanied by a physical quietude comparable to other forms of meditation. This increases the subject’s internal resonance to the body’s sound frequencies, for example the heart. This eliminates the “bifurcation echo”, in which the heartbeat moves up and down the body seven times a second. By placing the body in a sleep-like state, The Gateway CD’s, like meditation, lessen the force and frequency of the heartbeat pushing blood into the aorta. The result is a rhythmic sine wave that in turn amplifies the sound volume of the heart three times. This then amplifies the frequency of brainwave output. The film surrounding the brain—the dura—and fluid between that film and the skull, eventually begin to move up and down, by .0005 and .010 millimeters.
The body, based on its own micro-motions, then functions as a tuned vibrational system. The report claims that the entire body eventually transfers energy at between 6.8 and 7.5 Hertz, which matches Earth’s own energy (7 - 7.5 Hertz). The resulting wavelengths are long, about 40,000 kilometers, which also happens to be the perimeter of the planet. According to Bentov, the signal can move around the world’s electrostatic field in 1/7th of a second.
To recap, the Gateway Process goes like this:
• Induced state of calm
• Blood pressure lowers
• Circulatory system, skeleton and other organ systems begin to vibrate at 7 - 7.5 cycles per second
• Increased resonance is achieved
• The resulting sound waves matches the electrostatic field of the earth
• The body and earth and other similarly tuned minds become a single energy continuum.
We’ve gotten slightly ahead of ourselves here though. Back to the drawing board.
A psycho-quantum level deeper
Wayne then turns to the very nature of matter and energy. More materially (or less if you will), solid matter in the strict construction of the term, he explains, doesn’t exist. The atomic structure is composed of oscillating energy grids surrounded by other oscillating energy grids at tremendous speeds. These oscillation rates vary—the nucleus of an atom vibrates at 10 to the power of 22, a molecule vibrates at 10 to the power of 9, a human cell vibrates at 10 to the power of 3. The point is that the entire universe is one complex system of energy fields. States of matter in this conception then are merely variations in the state of energy.
The result of all these moving energies, bouncing off of energy at rest, projects a 3D mode, a pattern, called a hologram, A.K.A our reality as we experience it. It's best to think of it as a 3D photograph. There’s a whole rabbit hole to go down here. Suffice it to say, the hologram that is our experience is incredibly good at depicting and recording all the various energies bouncing around creating matter. So good, in fact, that we buy into it hook, line, and sinker, going so far as to call it our "life."
Consciousness then can be envisaged as a 3D grid system superimposed over all energy patterns, Wayne writes. Using mathematics, each plane of the grid system can then reduce the data to a 2D form. Our binary (go/no go) minds can then process the data and compare it to other historical data saved in our memory. Our reality is then formed by comparisons. The right hemisphere of the brain acts as the primary matrix or receptor for this holographic input. The left hemisphere then compares it to other data, reducing it to its 2D form.
In keeping with our species' commitment to exceptionalism, as far as we know humans are uniquely capable of achieving this level of consciousness. Simply, humans not only know, but we know that we know. This bestows upon us the ability to duplicate aspects of our own hologram, project them out, perceive that projection, run it through a comparison with our own memory of the hologram, measure the differences using 3D geometry, then run it through our binary system to yield verbal cognition of the self.
The click-out phase
Wayne then shows his cards as a true punisher, issuing, "Up to this point our discussion of the Gateway process has been relatively simple and easy to follow. Now the fun begins." Shots fired, Wayne. What he's preparing the commander reading this heady report for is the reveal—how we can use the Gateway to transcend the dimension of spacetime.
Time is a measurement of energy or force in motion; it is a measurement of change. This is really important. For energy to be classified as in motion, it must be confined within a vibratory pattern that can contain its motion, keeping it still. Energy not contained like this is boundary-less, and moves without limit or dimension, to infinity. This disqualifies boundary-less energy from the dimension of time because it has no rate of change. Energy in infinity, also called "the absolute state," is completely at rest because nothing is accelerating or decelerating it—again, no change. It therefore does not contribute to our hologram, our physical experience. We cannot perceive it.
Now back to frequencies. Wave oscillation occurs because a wave is bouncing between two rigid points of rest. It's like a game of electromagnetic hot potato (the potato being the wave and the participants' hands being the boundaries of the wave). Without these limits, there would be no oscillation. When a wave hits one of those points of rest, just for a very brief instant, it "clicks out" of spacetime and joins infinity. For this to occur, the speed of the oscillation has to drop below 10 the power of -33 centimeters per second. For a moment, the wave enters into a new world. The potato simply disappears into a dimension we cannot perceive.
Theoretically speaking, if the human consciousness wave pattern reaches a high enough frequency, the “click-outs” can reach continuity. Put another way, if the frequency of human consciousness can dip below 10 to the power of 33 centimeters per second but above a state of total rest, it can transcend spacetime. The Gateway experience and associated Hemi-Sync technique is designed for humans to achieve this state and establish a coherent pattern of perception in the newly realized dimensions.
Passport to the hologram
In theory, we can achieve the above at any time. The entire process though is helped along if we can separate the consciousness from our body. It’s like an existential running head start where the click-out of a consciousness already separated from its body starts much closer to, and has more time to dialogue with, other dimensions.
This is where things get a little slippery; hold on as best you can. The universe is in on the whole hologram thing, too, Wayne writes. This super hologram is called a "torus" because it takes the shape of a fuck-off massive self-contained spiral. Like this:
Give yourself a moment to let the above motion sink in...
This pattern of the universe conspicuously mirrors the patterns of electrons around the nucleus of an atom. Galaxies north of our own are moving away from us faster than the galaxies to the south; galaxies to the east and west of us are more distant. The energy that produced the matter that makes up the universe we presently enjoy, will turn back in on itself eventually. Its trajectory is ovoid, also known as the cosmic egg. As it curls back on itself it enters a black hole, goes through a densely packed energy nucleus then gets spat out the other side of a white hole and begins the process again. Springtime in the cosmos, baby!
And that is the context in which the Gateway Experience sits.
[Deep breaths.]
THE TECHNIQUE
The following is an outline of the key steps to reach focus levels necessary to defy the spacetime dimension. This is an involved and lengthy process best attempted in controlled settings. If you’re in a rush, you can apparently listen to enough Monroe Institute Gateway Tapes in 7 days to get there.
The Energy Conversion Box: The Gateway Process begins by teaching the subject to isolate any extraneous concerns using a visualization process called “the energy conversion box.”
Resonant Humming: The individual is introduced to resonant humming. Through the utterance of a protracted single tone, alongside a chorus on the tapes, the mind and body achieve a state of resonance.
The Gateway Affirmation: The participant is exposed to something close to a mantra called The Gateway Affirmation. They must repeat to themselves variations of, “I am merely a physical body and deeply desire to expand my consciousness.”
Hemi-Sync: The individual is finally exposed to the Hemi-Sync sound frequencies, and encouraged to develop a relationship with the feelings that emerge.
Additional Noise: Physical relaxation techniques are practiced while the Hemi-Sync frequencies are expanded to include “pink and white” noise. This puts the body in a state of virtual sleep, while calming the left hemisphere and raising the attentiveness of the right hemisphere.
The Energy Balloon: The individual is then encouraged to visualize the creation of an “energy balloon” beginning at the top of the head, extending down in all directions to the feet then back up again. There are a few reasons for this, the main one being that this balloon will provide protection against conscious entities possessing lower energy levels that he or she may encounter when in the out-of-body state.
Focus 12: The practitioner can consistently achieve sufficient expanded awareness to begin interacting with dimensions beyond their physical reality. To achieve this state requires conscious efforts and more “pink and white noise” from the sound stream.
Tools: Once Focus 12 is achieved, the subject can then employ a series of tools to obtain feedback from alternate dimensions.
Problem Solving: The individual identifies fundamental problems, fills their expanded awareness with them, and then projects them out into the universe. These can include personal difficulties, as well as technical or practical problems.
Patterning: Consciousness is used to achieve desired objectives in the physical, emotional, or intellectual sphere.
Color Breathing: A healing technique that revitalizes the body’s energy flows by imagining colors in a particularly vivid manner.
Energy Bar Tool: This technique involves imagining a small intensely pulsating dot of light that the participant charges up. He or she then uses the sparkling, vibrating cylinder of energy (formerly known as the dot) to channel forces from the universe to heal and revitalize the body.
Remote Viewing: A follow-on technique of the Energy Bar Tool where the dot is turned into a whirling vortex through which the individual sends their imagination in search of illuminating insights.
Living Body Map: A more organized use of the energy bar in which streams of different colors flow from the dot on to correspondingly-colored bodily systems.
Seven days of training have now occurred. Approximately 5 percent of participants get to this next level, according to the report.
Focus 15 - Travel Into the Past: Additional sound on the Hemi-Sync tapes includes more of the same, plus some subliminal suggestions to further expand the consciousness. The instructions are highly symbolic: time is a huge wheel, in which different spokes give access to the participant’s past.
Focus 21 - The Future: This is the last and most advanced state. Like Focus 15, this is a movement out of spacetime into the future.
Out-of-Body Movement: Only one tape of the many is devoted to out-of-body movement. This tape is devoted to facilitating an out-of-body state when the participant’s brain wave patterns and energy levels reach harmony with the surrounding electromagnetic environment. According to Bob Monroe, the participant has to be exposed to Beta signals of around 2877.3 cycles per second.
CONCLUSIONS
Wayne expresses concern about the fidelity of information brought back from out-of-body states using the Gateway technique. Practical applications are of particular concern because of the potential for “information distortion.”
The Monroe Institute also ran into a bunch of issues in which they had individuals travel from the West to the East Coast of the U.S. to read a series of numbers off of a computer screen. They never got them exactly right. Wayne chalks this up to the trouble of differentiating between physical entities and extra-time-space dimensions when in the out-of-body state.
Wayne swings back to support mode though, lending credence to the physics foundation of the report. He cites multiple belief systems that have established identical findings. These include the Tibetan Shoug, the Hindu heaven of Indra, the Hebrew mystical philosophy, and the Christian concept of the Trinity. Here he seems more interested in hammering home the theoretical underpinnings that make The Gateway Experience possible, rather than the practical possibilities promised by The Gateway Tapes.
Possibly with his CIA top brass audience in mind, Wayne then gives an A-type nod to The Gateway Experience for providing a faster, more efficient, less subservient, energy-saving route to expanded consciousness. This finishes with a series of recommendations to the CIA for how to exploit Gateway’s potential for national defense purposes.
The missing page
One curious feature of The Gateway Report is that it seems to be missing page 25. It’s a real cliffhanger too. The bottom of page 24 reads “And, the eternal thought or concept of self which results from this self-consciousness serves the,” The report picks back up on page 26 and 3 sections later as if Wayne hadn’t just revealed the very secret of existence.
The gap has not gone unnoticed. There's a Change.org petition requesting its release. Multiple Freedom of Information Act requests have demanded the same. In all cases, the CIA has said they never had the page to begin with. Here’s a 2019 response from Mark Lilly, the CIA’s Information and Privacy Coordinator, to one Bailey Stoner regarding these records:
One theory goes that that rascal Wayne M.-fricking-McDonnell left the page out on purpose. The theory contends that it was a litmus test—if anyone truly defies time-space dimensions, they’ll certainly be able to locate page 25.
[Cosmic shrug.]
Writing Credit Vice
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CIA Declassified Report– The Gateway Experience
Here is a copy of the Missing Page 25
There will be a Gateway Help Post following within the next couple days. Thought you might be interested in a little history in the meantime. Cheers!

Will try to make this short with TLDR. At a bit of a crossroads.
TLDR: Is it financially stupid to go back to previous employer if they've approached me (albeit on a better wage than previous) for increased work life balance with new negotating power. Both employers very stable secure jobs.

• Current: 180K, WFH 2 days, 80 hou10 day fortnight - Benefit of exposure to newer Cloud systems etc... stronger wage growth potential in future (200K next year or so). Negative: stressful, responsible for other peoples work, days in office are lonely/provide no benefit, taking some days off for mental health...

versus...

• Option: 160K~ with previous employer, WFH unlimited (but happy to go in 1-2 days to see friends face to face), 60 hou8 day fortnight, 5 weeks leave, LSL resumes - straight back into solid leadership team of good friends, direct connection to senior leaders, technical work and can be creative. Use extra weekday for hobbies, life, side business. Negative: back to same systems and red tape, slow wage growth, 'going back to employer is a terrible move'

Detail...
Background: 15+ years with a longterm stable employer. Worked up into leadership role but hands on technical delivery. Strong network, good work friends. Finally left as wanted to see 'other' workplaces, got a bit bored and push income higher. Left on approx $120K in the last year. Previous employer colleagues/leaders have kept in touch checking in since I left.
Current: Landed job in company about one year in now, WFH 2 days, 180K salary (200K next couple of years). Work is stressful (across many projects, under resourced teams, putting out fires from mismanaged development etc), but I'm delivering really well - learned a lot, but mentally struggling, have had to take a couple of days off as I just couldn't log on. Have met with leadership as my line manager said I'll burn out with how much has been put on me (out of their control) - leadership convo had no concrete answers, just broad 'this is the direciton we are going' around high level roadmaps - but nothing about my actual day to day work. Fair bit of staff turnover in my role - many deactivated person accounts I've come across. Do I push through the pain for the hope of a different role (big organisation)?
Option: Previous employers CEO has been asking why certain technical work isn't being completed anymore, answer was it was me. Been approached to come back - I've had the power to negotiate, was an enjoyble conversation. Salary ~160K (hard cap unfortunately), four day work week, five weeks annual leave, WFH. LSL will resume. No staff. Pick my projects. Hands on technical which I enjoy. Superannuation comparable in both orgs but obviously less with the lower wage. Keen to use the four day work week to look at setting up my own side business (expanding on some ad-hoc freelancing I do for free with friends and family members). However the net loss in income.. and how that compounds over years as well as is it a terrible idea to 'go back' (even though they approached me). Do I get the life balance/sanity back and focus on family/hobbies/my own business? Wife is supportive as she's seen the toll on my mental health but I'm the finance guy in our family and the $'s always keep coming to mind.
Expenses: Probably at our peak spending years, aged approx 40. Teenagers/pre teens in private school (total $25k year). Mortgage ~470K (PPOR val ~900K). No other debts. Super 450k+90k. Wife working part time (50-60k year).

Introduction

There was a post that was recently posted and it's been asked a ton: "How do I get a computer science related job after I graduate from KSU?". I thought I'd share this with everyone because I've been down this path and managed to make it on the other side. This will be a long explanation and hopefully, can serve as some sort of guide for students. That being said, things are subjective and this is not the holy grail of how to make it. You might find all, some or none of it useful. I encourage testimonials and whatnot in the comments. Can be applied to all majors but, this primary for technology-based majors since I am in tech field. YMMV

About Me

I've been around here for a while. I was a student not too long ago, studied computer science for my bachelors. After graduating, I work in FAANG and have worked in big tech for a while. No, I don't work at Amazon. I am a senior software engineer. I touch frontend & backend technologies. I participate in hiring frequently.

Starting Out

Over the years and while attending here, there's been a weird disconnect between students, goals and how to achieve them in tech. Goals can be anywhere from learning new technologies, getting internships to securing a full time job before or after you graduate. As much as I would love for there to be a path where you can do minimum effort and still succeed, there isn't. A lot of you seem to not realize that. Getting a degree in this field is not enough. Doing projects that show no passion / interests is not enough. Being stuck on tutorials for years is not enough.
This field is much like a sport. There are very few people that can just be great without any effort. You have to be consistent. Four years is not a lot of time. It goes by super fast. If you constantly push things back and you do not take the time to learn the fundamentals outside the classroom, you will not succeed in this field. This field is at a point where there's so many of you. Every post on LinkedIn and news articles said "hey, this field is a gold mine and you'll make six figures out the gate". For a time, maybe that was somewhat true. As of writing this, it's not. You're going against people who have: better schools, better experience, etc. You have to find a way to diversify yourself early. If you can't diversify, you're going to be in a tough place later down the road. Knowledge not something you can just consume in less than an hour and pass an interview. You have to know it well. If you don't, there's someone else who will.
There's an interesting connotation in life that you're either born super smart or an absolute idiot and that you have to be smart to do computer science / programming. There are people with raw IQ that can consume things like no one you've ever met but, that's such a rarity that there's no realistic use in using that as a data point. If you ever took the time to ask someone who you thought was really good at something, they would tell you something along the lines of: I love what I do and I spent a lot of time doing this. There are hours and hours of time people put into passions that you don't / will never see. Meaning that they can no-life this shit for days on end and still come back and do it some more. It doesn't mean that you can't succeed if don't do that but, computing / programming is a very boring field if you do not enjoy it. I would seriously contemplate why you're going through this. If you're doing it for money and only money, you're going to end up miserable. No amount of money can make you do something you hate. It'll wear you down both mentally and physically. If you're doing this because it's a mix of passion and money, you're like everyone else and you gave yourself a better shot. It's a mental thing. Don't climb uphill if you rather sit at the bottom. Don't complain if you're at the bottom and you rather be at the top. There's nothing wrong with that. But, don't do it. For what it's worth, I am not the smartest person. I graduated high school with a low GPA and took college seriously because I wanted to do more with my life. Plus, being on hourly forever sounds horrible imo. Use the opportunities that life has given to you and run with it. Run far, run smart and run in a direction that you can see yourself going long-term.
Additionally, college is what you make of it. Blaming professors or the program (while I do agree sometimes) is not a solution. Blaming professors that don't speak English is a cop out. If you work in tech, you'll be interacting with a lot of people from other countries. Suck it up. Work with it instead of against it. Professors and TAs can only teach you so much. Classes are meant to give you a taste of what it's like in that domain / space. It's not meant to fix all your issues and show you the way. That's for you to do on your own time. Take accountability of your own success, explore the internet (it's free) and lock in. Stop looking for opportunities to find you. Actively seek them out yourself.

Networking

Make connections with people. I cannot stress how important this is. Especially on the Marietta campus, there's a lot of you that go to class, stingers / food, run to class and immediately start gaming and think that when your classes are over, you're done for the day. That's a bad mindset. Make connections with people. Sit with random people at stingers or wherever. Have a conversation. Find a common interest. Don't harass men / women for a date while you're at it. Keep it cool. A lot of people say "there's nothing to do at KSU and there's no life on campus". That's not true at all. It's true if you choose to put your head in a box and refuse to look up. Join a club that interests you. Get close to the people in that club who actively attend and build a personal relationship. If there's no club with your interest, make a club. Fuck it, lead one. You can make one officially through KSU or add a discord server to the student hub and go from there. You'll meet some really cool like-minded people. Lots of my connections have come from randomly showing up to a club, getting out of my comfort zone and weirdly enjoying it.

Interviewing

Brush up on your interview skills. Technical and behavioral abilities matter. Culture fit matters. A lot of you seem to walk around with almost zero personal hygiene. Clean yourself up, practice talking to people and get places. There's been this stigma that culture fit doesn't matter as much as technical and if I have great technical abilities, they'll just accept me. I can tell you for an absolutely fact that I have thrown out / tossed out resumes from highly technical individuals that had zero people skills. If you can't communicate and clean up, you're more of a risk than someone who does all those things and has a bit less technical ability. I can teach someone how to code. I can't teach someone how to take a shower or brush their teeth. Know more than just Leetcode. Learn system design. Take a course / watch a video on Linux and bash. Do not be afraid of the command line interface. Understand how things work at a deeper level. Take feedback seriously. Do not argue with people. If you future manager / colleague tells you that you need to work on things, work on those things. There's nothing worse than a co-worker in denial.

Jobs

As for internships and full time opportunities, there's a few classes at KSU that you really want to master: Data structures, Algorithm Analysis, Operating Systems and Discrete math. If you're in a major that doesn't have those classes, spend the extra money and take those classes. Do not take them online if you can afford to come in person. Take the hardest / best professors for those courses. Super important. Leetcode is quite literally, those classes merged together in a prompt-style format. If you do not understand those concepts, you will not make it in this field let alone pass an interview loop.
Data Structures - Varies. Rate my professor.
Algorithm Analysis - Varies. Rate my professor.
Operating Systems - Do not take Carla McManus if you want to learn the concepts fluently.
Discrete Math - Andy Wilson.
Having solid resume is super important. Many people who don't secure things and get automatically rejected, etc have horrible resumes. Spend the money (it's a lot) to get your resume professionally written. It's worth it. Invest in your long term career aspirations. Templates are cool but, they don't convey information well and come across as lazy. Don't put every achievement ever on there. I don't want to see a wall of text. No, I don't care if you're a Boy Scout. No, I don't care if you bussed tables in high school. You get the point. The rule of "only one page" is complete and total bullshit. If you have projects and prior work experience related to the role, list it down. Don't conserve space for the sake of keeping it one page. You're limiting yourself. I know the career center actively tells people on handshake to keep it to one page. They're wrong. I landed internships & full time roles consistently at big tech / FAANG for years with a 1.5 / 2 page resume. Do not lie on your resume. If you can't solve a leetcode hard consistently with the technology / language of choice, you don't know it well enough. I have interviewed a ton of students and people that list they know C or Python and can't write recursion or gives me a solution in O(N^2) or worse. Aim for O(N), use a hashmap / hash table when you can and do it in a language that doesn't make you fight the runtime / compiler. Trust me, we know when you're making shit up. If you don't know something say it and then, tell them to explain more. This way, you show that you have the capability to learn. Ask smart questions. Do not ask questions that have already been answered. Take notes.
On your resume, experience is only real experience if you get a W2. If you don't get a W2, you can't claim it as professional experience. A lot of background checks these days are drilling down on incorrect information. I have seen instances where people lie, get an offer, company finds out through a comprehensive background check and their offer is gone. Do not put the fate of your future income on a lie. I cannot stress this enough. A lot of students and people actively lie.
Secondly, the trick to getting a good internship is timing. A lot of you wait until Nov - Dec to find an internship and then, throw your hands up when no one responds. That's not a good mindset. Solid internships are recruiting in end of July to August. By September, the amount of open spots are extremely thin. Local companies tend to look for internships during this time. Internships are about luck after that. Reach out to people in your circle to increase your odds. A referral goes a long way. Prior experience through projects that are complex and unique go a long way. It's a numbers game. Don't aim for the highest thing ever without some sort of referral. You can still apply but, do not expect much from it. Start small and work your way up. It's extremely rare to go from KSU undergrad sophomore to Google. It takes a lot of outside work. If you happen to land the internship, make sure that you get recommendations at the end. Having real people who you worked with in a professional capacity that can vouch for you is huge. If you're in your junior year and you get an internship, make sure you try to secure a full time offer. Loop in your boss, mentor, etc. Make your expectations clear. Reach their expectations and beyond.
Thirdly, full time opportunities are rare and most new grads that get hired come from the previous year's intern pool. If you don't get converted, you have to make up that time searching for a job during your senior year. If you do get converted, keep looking because companies are flaky these days. Always have a Plan B & C. Never fully count on Plan A. If you don't have internships across four years, it's over for you. From a hiring manager perspective, it's an absolute red flag when we come across someone with a degree and no internships. That's effectively going against the point of college. You'll have to settle for crumbs and crawl your way up. Very few make it out of that hole. The bar is significantly higher. Especially, now.

Searching for an Opportunity

Do not wait until after you graduate to find a job. Jan - Early May are when most companies finalize budgets and hire. If you wait until after May, you'll might have to wait until after the Summer and possibly, October for hiring to pick up again. Proactivity is nothing but good for you. If you can't be proactive then, you won't succeed in this field. Referrals matter but, personal connections with the hiring manager / recruiter are much, much better. Work your way up. Don't discount an opportunity because it doesn't pay well. Get as much experience as you can and bounce around. Do not go into the gate thinking you're going to make $120K - $140K / yr out the gate. You're most-likely going to make $68K - $75K / yr depending on the location. Do not listen to LinkedIn posts that claim all this cool shit and how to do it. Trust me, it's bullshit. Don't pay attention to it. It's a brag-fest. It's a long road. Start walking on it early and you'll reach the other side when it matters most. Trust in it.
The reality of this economy is that highly experience people have been laid off. Those people are applying to entry level roles and those roles are being filled for cheap. In addition, watch out for fake postings and scam jobs. If you take a contract job, always keep looking. Avoid jobs that will providing "training" before you even start. Avoid jobs that are less than week old. You want things that are fresh. It's a numbers game. Apply for 300+ jobs every week until you get a response back. Don't be discouraged by employers who don't respond or ghost you. Keep at it. It's a mental game.

Conclusion

I think if you do these things, you'll end up at a great spot after four years. If you're just now coming across this and you've been slacking, use this an opportunity to wake the fuck up, light a fire under your ass and lock in. If you're still in denial after reading this post and you have yet to get anything, light a fire under your ass, come to terms with it and lock in.
If you're in it to do zero work, cheat on your classes, mess around for four years and somehow wing a high salary or a job in this field, good luck. You're fucked. You're so fucked, in-fact, that you'll be wondering "why me and why is it so hard" for a long ass time. Don't be that person.

Cool Resources

Git - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvUiKWv2-C0
Github (use this as your portfolio; web devs should make an actual clean website) - https://github.com
Github Student Pack (tons of free resources) - https://education.github.com/pack
Linux Handbook - https://linuxhandbook.com/ Linux Quickguide - https://github.com/mikeroyal/Linux-Guide
Lots of subreddits geared around linux and programming. Great resources to find.
Understand: Kernel Space vs. User Space, Memory Allocation / Deallocation, Bitwise Operations, Memory blocks, processes and threads, context switching
System Design Primer - https://github.com/donnemartin/system-design-primer
Understand: Monolith vs. Micro-services, Tradeoffs between different approaches, Vertical vs. Horizontal Scaling, Load Balancers, Buckets, Data lakes, CI / CD Pipelines, Data Clusters, Client-Server Architecture, Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Context: System design is like a giant puzzle that has many forms. Create a basic design. It won't be perfect. Mix-and-match different services and know why, how and tradeoffs between each approach.
Programming language is dependent on the role and what the company favors. Common ones are Java, C++, Python, C#, JavaScript / TypeScript and C. You can look at jobs that you would like to work someday, look at the requirements and use that as a basis on where to start learning. Things constantly change. Fundamentals build up on each other. Start small. Work your way up. Do not dream big. Dream realistic. Everyone is different.

Just recently got a new job. I had been looking for over a year, and it's the first opportunity presented to me. I'm now only 2 days in and all I can think is I wish I never saw the email and was still jobless..
Trying to finish my AA so I can raise my GPA and pursue a bachelor's and even masters possibly close to full time. However I am low on money because I had not worked since 2022.
I was very overweight and had extreme mental issues. I fixed a lot of the physical stuff, and mental stuff has got slightly better do to bettering my life style and some medical diagnosis, but still not great.
I needed money though. What little I had is all but gone, and my mom has been letting me live at home for free. I spent what little I had on classes, and even then it was not enough for my last spring semester and the current summer one. My mom also assisted with those too.
I feel like such a a freeloader because I was not providing any money to myself, nor her and she was letting me live here for free and eat her groceries. It disgusted me, but I was in such a rough position working a job was impossible for me.
Now I got this new job. Working in IT for a college specializing in Dental medicine, and I am only 2 days in and hate it. Now a huge reason is because of 2 things outside of the job, and both sort of affecting each other.
1.) my exercise routine. I was biking 100 miles a week and working out 4 days a week on a very religious schedule, and seeing great results. My body fat percent was going down wonderfully, and I felt amazing health wise. Now I cannot do that unless I want to sleep less than 8 hours a night, which is already hard for me to get, especially because of my extreme anxiety and depressive issues. 2.) school. I am still 21 credit hours away from finishing my AA. I am currently taking pre calc, math being a subject I am very not good at, and I have almost no time to do it. I come home from work, and immediately heat up food and sit down to try and get in a lecture and finish homework, and I barely get it done. I have no time to workout or ride my bike or any exercise after work because it takes me all of my time to heat up dinner, prepare lunch for the next day, clean what needs cleaned, shower and do all the pre calc that needs done.
I am terrified the mental progress I have made is going out the door, as well as the physical fitness, and I'm scared I will fail precalculus lowering my GPA and forcing me to retake it. (Also wasting 500 bucks).
On top of all of that, the job has been nuts. I am 2 days in, and already my entire department seems to hate life. The IT director constantly jokes about firing people and us, all the people underneath him talk shit about each other, there is 0 onboarding process for a new hire, and I'm already doing so many projects I have had to skip lunch, and then get asked by 5 different hr people why I skipped lunch. They tell me to stay and do work and then ask me why I'm still here. I am also being told that as an hourly employee only supposed to work Monday through Friday, that June 2nd I have to work all day Sunday for the students graduation even though I have an exam due that night. So not only am I just out of the blue being forced to work a 6th day that week, but I have to come home and immediately take a pre calc test I will most likely be barley prepared for.
My mom tells me " if you think you need tutoring you should do it" like when the hell am I supposed to have time for that ?? I don't even have time to do anything else.
This is the first week on the job, I will be lucky if I finish all of my homework before Friday when it's do, and even then, I have an exam this Sunday already and will probably have to spend the entire day Saturday and Sunday preparing for it, and skip any chance and physical exercise, or spend time exercising and risk having to stay up all night and being under prepared.
My anxiety is through the fucking roof. I used to have panic attacks constantly, and luckily I have not reached that point, but I feel like my blood pressure is so high that my veins are about to Burst.
I mean I'm 2 fucking days in... How am I supposed to do this for the rest of precalculus. I mean honestly if I make it through this class and pass it I don't think any other class will lose a threat, but it's just insane...
Idk how people do this. I don't get why our society makes it impossible for people to find a job and work hard and have that job make time for school. I have to deal with corporate ass holes who want me to work to the bone just so I can afford to fail my classes... Like what the fuck.
I felt horrible being in the situation I was in not providing any money to myself or my mom... But fuck I want to literally blow my brains out now. Maybe it will get more relaxed, but I can't see that happening whatsoever until I get deeper into precalculus and see if i will even pass it ..
I have 0 people to count on too. No one is supportive whatsoever. No one to hug, or get reassurance from. My mom just says this is how it is and doesn't care. I can't talk to a therapist because anytime I say anything more than I'm sad they want to lock me in a psych ward because no one gives a rats ass about mental health in Florida, or America. I have no friends in real life within 500 miles of me. It's just me.
Idk what to do. Idk what to believe in. Idk how to calm myself, or cope. I can't do any of the things that we're making my life better.
The one thing I have still going strong is diet. I also wake up with enough time before work to at least go on a quick jog before I get ready and leave, but it isn't enough.
I feel like If I can't find some sort of relief or balance I'm going to be right back to crying and panic attacks In the bathroom in a matter of weeks.
I honestly hate life. I wish I could go back to younger me and tell him to sweat blood trying to get into a university with full scholarships so I could pursue The education I dream of full time and find a job I truly enjoy. That is still my long term goal, but I feel like I'm killing myself to get there.
I know so many people do stuff like this and make it though, but so all of those people have decades of issues with major anxiety and depression? Have they all thought about suicide since they were 13 ?
Maybe they have, but for fucks sakes if they have can they at least hug me or just reassure me everything will be okay ???
Because life is very difficult right now.
Also I typed this on my phone, so if some words seem out of place, I probably missed a letter here or there and phone auto corrected.

I'm primary parent for our family. My kid is starting elementary school so I will have 4-5 hours per day available.Ive been looking through job postings for over a month now and cannot find something that would match my availability. Where do you find part-time work?
I have an Associate's degree in Mechanical CAD Drafting and the roles I've had in the past are somewhere between design and engineering. I do mostly SolidWorks and Fusion 360 / Inventor, they are my bread and butter. I live in a fairly large city with population over 2M in the metro area. I have 5 years experience as a CAD designer.
I don't really want to freelance. I've done this before and my hourly income just tanks because of all the hand-holding and bidding and the fact that frankly I don't know every single manufacturing process at an expert level, and I'm also not great at convincing people to do what's best for the product. I have maybe a mid-career understanding of most mechanical design and manufacturing processes. I'm mostly a CAD technician though, not a full mechanical engineer. I do simple projects excellently but I don't have load-analysis skills or formal engineering education. Mechanical devices and assemblies with less than a dozen unique parts is my sweet zone.
So how do you get a part-time job? Are they taboo now days? Do you just apply to the full-time stuff and say you are only available part-time during your interview or screening? What am I missing?