Hey there! I am a 30 year old guy from Upstate New York looking for someone that wants to make an emotional connection.
A bit about me: I'm 6’1". I get height can be a big deal for some women so I think it's best to just put it out there first 😅 I've got black hair, brownish black eyes. Average body, I'm muscular and wanting to start exercising both for health and a little bit for better shape. I like to think I'm fairly attractive but then most of us grew up with a relative always telling us we were not handsome or cute, etc. we can share pictures once we establish some comfort zone. If education is important, I am a college graduate with post-graduation degree as well. Now working as an engineer.
I have to lead with the fact that I can be pretty sarcastic at times. I also joke and (playfully) tease. I'm pretty easy going/chill and I like to keep things light and fun, but also enjoy getting into the really deep conversations as well. I'm a sucker for the whole good morning and goodnight text thing as well as checking in on those busier days. That doesn’t mean we have to just message good morning and good night for the whole week. Haha. I think most important part of knowing someone via online platform is initial conversations and if you don’t have enough time let me know otherwise that conversation is dead in no time.
I love animals. I've always felt very connected and attached to them and just enjoy interacting with them. While I am more of a dog person pet-wise, cats are still pretty cool in my book. Cats are more complex though I love the mysterious nature.
Anything outdoors is great in my opinion. Just feel like going for a walk? Let's do it. I do kayaking a bit in the summers, fish, hike, go for drives. I have the habit of occasionally stopping and taking pictures of plants and flowers I see around (I'm always down to share!). While sending me message write code - “I4U” so that I know it’s someone who actually read my post. Didn’t write in the end cuz some people might just skip to end. This doesn’t mean that you just send me the code. I am strictly gonna monitor now. I have skimmed through soo many texts and my innocent heart always gives chances, I am gonna try to be little strict this time.
It's not just the outdoors I love. I can also get down with chill days at home binging something on Netflix or playing something on my PC. Let's face it, I'm a bit if a nerd (everyone has something nerd about themselves) and if you like Jurassic park, board games, Any Mafia movies, gaming, etc we will get along great. I'm a sucker for horror movies as well and am always looking for recommendations. I listen to a lot of music. I shouldn’t brag but I listen to english ,german, Spanish, french and Hindi songs. Born and brought up in India. Hence, hindi songs.
A bit about (possibly) you: I'd prefer if you were in some sort of professional environment and ambitious. I'm not extremely picky about things like hair and eye color. Height is also not a big deal. If you're alot smaller than me and worried that it's something you’ll be insecure about, it's not. The big thing for me is personality. I think personality can make us a lot more or a lot less attractive. I want someone that is genuinely kind and sweet, someone that likes to laugh, someone that's not afraid to be goofy.
A final note: I'm a single guy and looking for someone dynamic. Sometimes I can respond immediately and sometimes it takes a minute due to the obvious circumstances. I also don't expect you to respond immediately to every message, I get that we all have lives and can be busy at times. It would be awesome if you are up for a voice chat. And please when responding write something about yourself.
If any if this sounds remotely interesting to you, feel free to reach out via reddit dm or chat!

I saw 2-3 posts here in the last few days, and I am getting very disappointed in the trajectory of our community (meaning academia in general). High school kids wanting to publish??
No offense to anyone, but they can’t possibly have the scientific knowledge to create actual publishable work. Also, other than the few posts here I have also run into a couple examples in real life. I don’t know about social sciences, but in STEM I know they don’t have the mathematical tools to be able to comprehend what would be needed. Obviously there are geniuses and exceptions, but we are not talking about these cases.
I am very scared about where this will lead. We first started with academics wanting more and more papers, so some publishing institutions lowered their standards and start to ask for more money. Nowadays even in reputable journals work is not replicable because its massed produced, and the review process does not involve replicating the work (because of course it doesn’t, why would I spend a month of my life replicating something for free).
So if this happens I will not be surprised even one bit if high school students start with some help getting publications, then semi-predatory publishers catch on to this, and the standards are lowered further, and everyone follows suit.
I am overall very disappointed with the dependence of academic progress to paper publishing and how that leads to the demise of actual academic work. I was in a committee to assign funding to new PhD students, and this year I couldn’t believe my eyes… two of the candidates (students that had just finished their master’s) had Nature publications (one was Nature Neuroscience and the other Nature Biology). I don’t doubt for a moment that those kids are super bright and will make great scientists, but come on. A Nature publication before starting a PhD?
Dirac had 60 papers in his life. Bohr about 100. I’ve seen quite a few early level academics (AP’s and a case of a postdoc as well) that have more than that. This doesn’t make sense. And now colleges will require a couple of publications to give a scholarship or something??
Many of you might disagree and that is ok, but in my opinion a paper should say something new, something important, and contain all the information to replicate it. In my opinion 90% of current papers do not fill those criteria (many of my own included, as I too am part of this system. One has to do what they have to do in the system they are in if they want to eat.).
Sorry for the rant. I would much prefer to do 6 papers in my career spending 5 years in each than do 150 spending a month and a half in each. I really really wish this trend of high schoolers trying to publish does not catch on.
Ideally tomorrow all publishers would start to reject 90% of the papers and employ with actual pay people to do very comprehensive reviews. Maybe even add the name of the reviewer in the paper as a contributor or something. But it ain’t happening.

Hey there! I am a 30 year old guy from Upstate New York looking for someone that wants to make an emotional connection, and would like to put efforts into conversations.
A bit about me: I'm 6’1". I get height can be a big deal for some women so I think it's best to just put it out there first 😅 I've got black hair, brownish black eyes. Average body, I'm muscular and wanting to start exercising both for health and a little bit for better shape. I like to think I'm fairly attractive but then most of us grew up with a relative always telling us we were not handsome or cute, etc. we can share pictures once we establish some comfort zone. If education is important, I am a college graduate with post-graduation degree as well. Now working as an engineer.
I have to lead with the fact that I can be pretty sarcastic at times. I also joke and (playfully) tease. I'm pretty easy going/chill and I like to keep things light and fun, but also enjoy getting into the really deep conversations as well. I'm a sucker for the whole good morning and goodnight text thing as well as checking in on those busier days. That doesn’t mean we have to just message good morning and good night for the whole week. Haha. I think most important part of knowing someone via online platform is initial conversations and if you don’t have enough time let me know otherwise that conversation is dead in no time.
I love animals. I've always felt very connected and attached to them and just enjoy interacting with them. While I am more of a dog person pet-wise, cats are still pretty cool in my book. Cats are more complex though I love the mysterious nature.
Anything outdoors is great in my opinion. Just feel like going for a walk? Let's do it. I do kayaking a bit in the summers, fish, hike, go for drives. I have the habit of occasionally stopping and taking pictures of plants and flowers I see around (I'm always down to share!). While sending me message write code - “I3U” so that I know it’s someone who actually read my post. Didn’t write in the end cuz some people might just skip to end. This doesn’t mean that you just send me the code. I am strictly gonna monitor now. I have skimmed through soo many texts and my innocent heart always gives chances, I am gonna try to be little strict this time.
It's not just the outdoors I love. I can also get down with chill days at home binging something on Netflix or playing something on my PC. Let's face it, I'm a bit if a nerd (everyone has something nerd about themselves) and if you like Jurassic park, board games, Any Mafia movies, gaming, etc we will get along great. I'm a sucker for horror movies as well and am always looking for recommendations. I listen to a lot of music. I shouldn’t brag but I listen to english ,german, Spanish, french and Hindi songs. Born and brought up in India. Hence, hindi songs.
A bit about (possibly) you: I'd prefer if you were in some sort of professional environment and ambitious. I'm not extremely picky about things like hair and eye color. Height is also not a big deal. If you're alot smaller than me and worried that it's something you’ll be insecure about, it's not. The big thing for me is personality. I think personality can make us a lot more or a lot less attractive. I want someone that is genuinely kind and sweet, someone that likes to laugh, someone that's not afraid to be goofy.
A final note: I'm a single guy and looking for someone dynamic. Sometimes I can respond immediately and sometimes it takes a minute due to the obvious circumstances. I also don't expect you to respond immediately to every message, I get that we all have lives and can be busy at times. It would be awesome if you are up for a voice chat. And please please when responding write something about yourself.
If any if this sounds remotely interesting to you, feel free to reach out via reddit dm or chat!

Hi there!! I’m Danny 29M I’m looking for friends to chat with or gamer friends to game with. I am a nurse (Dermatology-Surgical/General) and also a college student working on my masters (Nurse Educator) Unfortunately I don’t have a life due to my intense schedule haha so the only socializing I can do is online for the moment lol so yeah super bored/lonely lol. I naturally treat everyone as if they are my neighbor so sparking a genuine conversation is effortless. No judgement here. Hobbies: Sports (Winter, College, and Olympics), Sparkling wine, Socializing. Bicycling, Education, Gaming, and traveling :) also if any of you guys play Overwatch or Fortnite hit me up. Don’t be shy!!

Hi y’all,
I’m currently a rising junior in undergrad at a decent liberal arts college. My gpa is 3.7 and I’m a double major in IR and Economics. I want to start studying for the LSAT this summer and wanted some suggestions of courses I could take or study tips. Thanks!

I used to run the 8 but I have moved down to the 4 so this is my first summer sprinting. I've looked around online pretty extensivly and I think I have a solid general guidlie. I was wondering if I could get it looked over.
Plan
Warmup:
Running section: - 3 laps, first slow, 2nd faster on straights, 3rd fastest on straights - 1 of 30,40,50, and 60m accelerations
Stretching section: - Head Circles x10 -Arm swings Front and Back 10/15times - Trunk Circles x 10 - Ankle & Wrist Circles x10 - Wave/Front Lunges each leg x2 - Eagles/Scorpions x8 - Heel Walking ( 1 minute each side) - High knees Drills 15m - Stride for 20m x 2 - Knee Circles x 6 - Front Grabs(knee into chest) (20m) - Twist grabs(shin toward chest) (20m)
Drills (20 meters) - A skips - B skips - C skips - High knees - Butt kicks - Anklings - Karyoka - Acceleration from 3 pt start (30,60,90) walk back
Monday: Top speed - Warmup - 5 minutes - 8 flying 30s, walk back rest, 90% Or - 10 flying 20s, walk back, 95% - 7 minutes - Stretch - Lift (Day one)
Tuesday: Tempo - Warmup - 5 minutes - Tempo 200s/300s 75%/70% x 6 Or - 4 laps of 150m in outs (50 hard, 50 float, 50 close) Or - 6-8 30 second low incline hill sprints, walk back - 7 minutes - core/hips - stretch
Wednesday: Active recovery - Warm up - 15-20 minute shakeout - 6x60m strides track/grass (emphasis on form) - 7 minutes down -Lift (Weaknesses and drills) - Fully body stretch - Rolling
Thursday: Acceleration - Warmup - 5 minutes - 6-8 by 30m acceleration (focus on form and staying relaxed) 1-2 minutes rest Or - 6 5-10 second hill sprints, walk back, 95% - 5-10 minutes - stretch
Friday: Form/Speed endurance (Late summer) - Warmup - 7 minutes - Block day Or - Mobility and drills (Check list) - 5 minutes - Stretch - Lift (Day 2)
Saturday: Rest - Fully body stretching - rolling
Sunday: Rest - Full body stretching - rolling

Ok, I know how the title sounds, but before ya’ll grab your torches and pitchforks, let me give you some background info. Also, sorry that it's a long post.
I (35 female) met my husband (40 male, we’ll call him Tom) 11 years ago. We were both still in the party phase of our twenties at that time. We drank and parties a lot,and had jobs where that sort of lifestyle was common (I was a waitress, and he had also worked in restaurants). During this time, my money was never well spent (obviously), and I got my car repoed twice, and had to move in with him to survive. This really made him reevaluate our current lifestyle.
Tom dragged me into a healthier lifestyle kicking and screaming. I still wanted to party, but I didn’t want to lose him. What we didn’t know at the time is that I had undiagnosed severe depression, anxiety, and PTSD. The party lifestyle was my way of self-medicating, and we didn’t find this out until much later.
I ended up getting a job as a medical assistant, and he finished his degree and got a government job. We moved across the country, got married, and had a baby, all while I didn’t really have a solid grasp on my mental health struggles.
After the birth of our daughter, I realized that I still had a lot of work to do in order to become the mother that she deserved. I finally saw my doctor about my struggles, got into talk therapy, and was placed on medication. It took a couple of tries, but I am finally on a good regimen, and my mental health is better than it has ever been.
I also took the birth of my daughter as an opportunity to quit my job and start working on a degree of my own. This is where the roles in Tom and my relationship started to become a problem.
As soon as we discussed my plan to go to school, Tom took it upon himself to find a college program for me, and he picked LPN (licensed practical nurse). I explained to him that while I wanted to stay in the medical field, I didn’t want to move into the world of nursing for a variety of reasons. He insisted that it was the best choice for our family, and that I would love it.
I told him that I really didn’t think it would suit me well, but that if he really wanted me to go into nursing, I should try to become an RN, because the pay would be better, and the training would be more comprehensive. He disagreed and said that we couldn’t afford for me to be in school for that long.
I really didn’t want to argue with him, and I felt myself shutting down, which is what I’ve always done when presented with conflict.
Day after day he would ask me if I had contacted the school he picked, or if I started the registration process. This constant pressure also made it very difficult for me to move forward. But finally, one day, while he was at work, and our daughter napped, I looked through the different programs available at the school that he picked. I found radiology technologist, and this quickly caught my interest. I called the school, scheduled my placement test, and was put in touch with who would end up being my advisor.
When he got home, I told him about what I had accomplished, and how excited I was about this particular program. He looked confused, and said something to the effect of “But I thought you wanted to do the LPN program? When did you change your mind?”
I explained, “No, you wanted me to do the LPN program, and I told you I didn’t want to get into nursing. I only agreed with you because you pushed it so hard. But look, this is also a two-year program, I’ll end up being an X-Ray tech, which I think will suit my strengths a lot better, and it has a lot of the same requirements.”
We ended up agreeing that Rad Tech was the best idea, but his has always insisted that LPN was my idea.
Fast forward two years. I am thriving in school, as a mother, and with my mental health. Our daughter is due to start pre-school in the fall, and I will be transferring schools to complete my degree. I have a 3.9 GPA, I am part of a prestigious honor society, and have earned numerous scholarships. I would like to think that I have grown up immensely in the past few years.
However, Tom still often treats me like a child. He does this in a lot of different ways. I’ll talk about buying a certain toy for our daughter, and if he doesn’t like the toy, he’ll usually just say “No, we’re not doing that.” If I push, he’ll say something to the effect of “You know how I feel about this,” which is his way of saying “End of conversation.” Whatever the issue is, we will almost always navigate through it and find a compromise. I don’t shut down with confrontation anymore and have gotten much better at arguing my points of view. But the way he talks to me seems super dismissive and has the same tone as a strict father talking to a rebellious teen. He can also be a complete man-splainer to an extreme degree.
I finally reached my breaking point with the way he talks to me yesterday. I had gone to my new campus to pick up my student I.D. and to walk around and get a feel for the place. I ended up being able to also get a copy of my class schedule before it was posted online. I realized that they had registered me for a class that I had already completed this past semester.
Tom called me while he was at lunch to chat, and I told him a bit about my day, and the mix up with my classes. I told him that I would make sure updated transcripts got sent to the campus, and I would email my advisor to discuss filling the slot with a different class (To be fair, I did say “with a B.S. class,” but obviously that isn’t how I would phrase it in the email). Tom started telling me “No, don’t do that. First, you have to make sure that you get new transcripts ordered, and then explain to him that you would rather take a humanities class. You can’t say a ‘B.S. class.’” He went on and on for a while.
Essentially, he took almost his entire lunch break to not only tell me what to do, but most of what he said, was what I had already planned on doing. When he had tired himself out with his rant, I stayed quiet, and just said “Ok.” He asked if I was mad, and I simply said “No, but please stop treating me like a child and trust that I will get this done on my own. You basically just took 15 minutes to tell me the exact same thing that I told you.”
Later that night, while I was cooking dinner, he opened the envelope that had my schedule in it, which had my name on it, not his, and started reading the schedule. This is a huge pet peeve of mine, but no matter how often I tell him this, he still does it. He then started trying to explain to me what all the different abbreviations on the form meant (which I already knew), and then started saying that he didn’t like how my schedule was set up. He thought it was too many classes one right after the other (it’s 3 classes in a row and would allow time for me to finish my school day early). He started telling me that I needed to tell my advisor to stretch out my schedule to allow time for a long lunch break, possibly with study time in between, yada yada.
I say yada yada, because I honestly stopped hearing what he was saying after a moment. Was he literally doing the exact same thing that I had asked him to stop earlier that day? Was he really man-splaining my class schedule to me? Was he really under the impression that he could tell me what to tell my advisor? I ended up cutting him off in the middle of whatever he was saying and said “Hey, you’re doing it again. Can you please stop treating me like a child? I’ll take care of this myself.”
He responded “You know I’m just trying to help. But if you don’t want my help, then fine. I’ll just shut up then.”
I lost it at that moment. The flood gates opened, and I honestly had no control over the words that came out of my mouth. I yelled that he wasn’t trying to help, that he was trying to dictate. I threw my GPA in his face, and explained how much I accomplished, while being the full time caregiver to our child, cooking every meal, running every household errand, and keeping our house spotless. I yelled that I wasn’t the dress over my head party girl who needed a guiding hand anymore, and that I was a grown ass responsible woman. I ended it with “You need to stop treating me like a Goddamn child and start treating me like a partner, because I’ve earned it.”
Tom was silent. We haven’t had a fight that involved yelling in years. He wasn’t used to this side of me at all. Eventually he apologized, said that I was right, and then went to have some alone time to process everything.
Here’s why I think that I may have been the asshole, and no, it’s not him trying to gaslight me into thinking I am. As I play the whole thing back in my head, I can’t help but think that I seriously crossed a line or two. First, our daughter, who is only two years old, was in the room with us. I never want us to be the type of parents that yell and scream in front of her.
Second, in the span of just a couple of years, I basically completely flipped the script on him. The beginning, and most of our relationship was spent with him being the grown up, and me being the screw up. I have essentially changed my entire brain chemistry with medication, have had talk therapy to help me grow as a person. Basically, I’ve reinvented myself. While all this has happened over the course of two years, you’d be surprised how quickly that time flies by in your late thirties/early forties, especially with a baby/toddler thrown into the mix. To Tom, it really could seem like this change, and my anger has come out of nowhere.
Also, just because I’ve changed, doesn’t mean that he has. He hasn’t been through the same hormonal and chemical changes that I’ve been through. Maybe I am the asshole for expecting the person he has always been to suddenly conform to the new me.
So what’s the verdict? Am I the asshole?

Hello everyone,
I'm a 26-year-old female with a master's degree in Mathematics from a top college at the University of Delhi. For the past three years, I've been preparing for the UPSC exams. However, I've decided to pivot my career and am now looking to enter the job market.
I'm particularly interested in becoming a data analyst and eventually pursuing an MBA after gaining some work experience. I would love some advice on the following:

1. Given my background in Mathematics and UPSC preparation, what are the possible job opportunities in the field of data analysis? Are there other roles I should consider?
   
2. What skills and certifications should I focus on to make myself a competitive candidate for data analyst positions? Any specific courses or online resources you'd recommend?
   
3. How can I effectively search for and apply to data analyst jobs? Any tips on crafting a resume and preparing for interviews would be greatly appreciated.
   

Thank you in advance for the help!

I'm Male 27 I am 5 foot 7 I am 185 pounds
I have asthma and GERD, but haven't had an episode in years
I have been losing weight since October 2023 (was 220 pounds)
I do not have high blood pressure, diabetes, or other conditions.
I am very physically active (I am on track to have walked/jogged 50 miles by this Sunday)
I started drinking at 21 but it wasn't regular and was relatively rare since I was working full-time and going to college.
At 23 I started to drink on weekends. It started off at one bottle per weekend, usually drunk in a single day. Then it got to be a bottle on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday during the pandemic.
I weened myself down to a bottle every weekend. By bottle, I am referring to a 750 ML wine bottle with ABV between 9.99% and 13%. I had periods where I didn't drink for a week or so and I believe I had a month or two where I didn't drink at all.
For the last two years I have been drinking a pretty regular amount. I had 3 weeks this year where I had more than 14 standard drinks (not back to back), but usually I was 10 standard drinks or less for the week. I also had 4 weeks (3 back to back weeks, 1 isolated week) with 0 alcohol consumption.
I had blood work and a urine analysis in late 2022 and I had no signs of any disease or liver damage. The only thing my primary care doctor observed were slightly lower than normal potassium levels (I was physically active but eating pure garbage), and advised me to eat more fruits/vegetables with potassium but was unconcerned.
My primary care doctor does not think I have abnormal drinking since I only drink a bottle over the weekend. He did advise me that this is less than ideal, that the healthy amount is 0 per week and that I should split it up into 2 days vs just a single day, but said it was unlikely to cause me problems.
I did see an ER doctor when I had chest pains last year (it turned out to be a pulled chest muscle that I recovered from), he did draw blood and didn't find anything. I took the chance to ask him about my alcohol consumption and said that my drinking would be about 6-8 standard drinks per week and I would be unlikely to have liver failure if I stayed at that level.
I am from the Southern US and I am surrounded by people who either drink constantly (as in having hard liquor, beer, etc) every single night and can barely function, or people who shun alcohol and believe it is a sin. As a result, I was constantly surrounded by mixed reactions to what I drink. It doesn't help that I went from lower class to middle upper class and all my colleagues/co-workers love to go to wineries, craft breweries, or tend to drink a lot in general.
I discovered that my estranged grandpa died of cirrhosis at 68, but according to my aunt, drank heavily every day for 50 years before he died from it. I don't drink every day, I only drink a single day and I've never driven drunk, I don't have hangovers, and I don't feel better when I go weeks without drinking.
I like the taste of wine, I like going to the winery for an outing, it's not uncommon to have business meetings at a winery, and I like the way wine makes me feel; but I am worrying that I am secretly hurting myself in a way that I will seriously regret in 10-20 years.
My main concern is that technically drinking 4-6 standard drinks in a single day is considered binge drinking. I even lowered my wine to 9.99% to roughly 4 standard drinks vs 6 standard drinks.
Will drinking 4 standard drinks once a week, on weekends, really cause me liver failure ?
I usually drink with food (no empty stomach), and over the course of 2-3 hours.
This might sound rambling, but I am completely clueless on this. I can find literature that says your liver can completely heal if you stop drinking for 1 to 3 weeks, some literature says that drinking more than 2 drinks in a day causes permanent damage, etc.
Any advice is appreciated, thank you.

When the internet was younger, there were many chats on many sites where we could enter a room and chat with aleatory people. And the more you visited the same rooms the more you would meet the same people and talk with the same people, which allowed us to have a kind of virtual friends, who we shared things about, even without ever knowing their real names, contact and address. It was like an online version of a bohemian bacafé, where you go because you know you will always meet the same people you have been talking to for long, but without ever having their telefone, address or full name.
Internet was about true talk and relations between people, with the option to talk in private as well. Even when new in one chat, we always ended up have a nice individual conversation with somebody talking about each other. Forums were similar and social media as well, it was about connecting, talking and sharing about you among friends.
Twitter keep a little bit of that but in General, because of algorithms for advertisers and people dedicated to content creation for strangers in exchange of virtual popularity and attention, the internet has been less about actual contact among people and more about creation and interaction with contents.
Of course that there were also space for content creation in the internet before. They were thematic forums, blongs and vlogs.
With mobile phones people are using the internet less for real people interaction and more for aleatory content distraction while they ate commuting, writing for something or bored at home.
Here on Reddit, we may sometimes talk about us to strangers and they may follow your account, but opening the app doesn't mean, and is not about, meeting people we have talked before who we felt we had some affinity with. It is about reading aleatory content and answering aleatory people's content. And reddit structure is not for long conversations. It is like the old McDonalds chairs and table; made for people to consume faster and move on quickly (in the case of reddit, move on to the next topic and the next sub). So instead of conversation people discuss and make speeches.
The more people get used to the content interaction, speech and discussion, the more it seems to influence people to argue about their different opinions on content differences, and the less people have real individual conversations where they could find affinities with each other.
But the internet became a lucrative space for advertising. The more we keep talking with each other about our adinities and in the same page for a dozen minutes or hours, the less we scroll for quick content, and so the less we see advertisements.
It means that the internet has become an unfriendly and isolating place and young people are spending less time in social media and more time in private group chats, with people they share affinities with and can have long talks about each other in a more comfortable way.

Maybe this isn't a sub for this and if so I'm sorry to the mods but I don't know where else to just scream until I numb my brain, I don't need to hear about how I should focus on actually reading theory and doing praxis I know that I don't know need to hear about how to just ignore the other kids because all I try to do is ignore ignore and ignore but here I am whining in an online forum because my Marxist brother who raised me is halfway across the country and busy working 3 jobs
People in my school are fucking stupid over Palestine. So fucking stupid I actually want to just lose my shit and scream at them one day but I know I can't. I'm very vocally pro-Palestine, I'm at every single demonstration downtown and I also post praxis pieces that explain the right to militant resistance and the PFLP and the general PLO. I very frequently link the struggle for a free Palestine to a struggle for socialism, I'm that communist bitch and I didn't care for the longest time but I swear to god a girl only has so much fucking patience
I'm so tired. I'm so goddamn tired and it's so embarassing to say it but I am so motherfucking tired. I am tired of people making gagging and grossed out faces when I mention Palestine, I'm tired of people using any Hamas related insult like a slur, I'm so mcfucking exhausted of people being shown bodies of literal children who died from starvation, their bodies are literally no shape but of their rib cage they are literal skeletons and these mfs decide to double down on their racism, I'm so tired of the constant backtalking as if I can't hear them or at least find out half the time.
Apparently seeing me give a speech at a decently big workers' union rally for Palestine through a screen wasn't as big of deal, seeing my social media posts saying much more radical stuff wasn't as big of a deal, but when I used a public speaking assignment in history class as an opportunity to speak about Palestine through a radical lens ("you shouldve gone softer" sir you don't know my classmates the ones that aren't already pro-Pal are straight up shamelessly racist teens there was no amount of softness getting to them) uncomparably people exploded in chatter about me all day.
"Do you know this girl named ___" "ohh what's the gossip now?" "yeah she gave an insane communist speech for Palsetine" "no way? wait I've seen her in the halls sometimes" "yeah do you see the clothes she wears" "her skirts are way too short' "didn't she get sexually assaulted?" "yeah lmao it happened to her twice" "are you friends with her?" "oh god no but I'm chill with one of the guys she said SAed her" "what are we talking about now?" "do you know a girl named ___" "isn't she the communist girl" "she doesnt even know what communism is" "she stopped being friends with [insert name of a kid who is a loud and proud zionist]?" "yeah it was becuase he's Jewish" "wait ___? isn't she the girl who got assaulted twice? the one who wears the short ass skirts" SHUT THE FUCK UP I'VE BEEN HEARING THIS NONSTOP FOR MONTHS AND MONTHS AND MONTHS
I'm a girl of course I can show the exact same amount of skin as a white girl in shorts and a tank top and still get called a slut because my clothes are feminine and that's obviously such hoe behavior, I'm a girl of course I'm not just a political person I'm a political whore, I'm a girl of course it's never just my politics or actions or words it's what I wear and who I date, I'm a girl of course people could straight up acknowledge that a man assaulted me and forced himself on me against my will and they'll still shamelessly say they're friends with that man and use it as a way to degrade my beliefs, I'm a girl of course other girls will put me down for male validation, I'm a girl of course my outift of the day makes my political scandal even more scandalous, I'm a girl of course my school admin of grown fkn adults acted liked 16 year olds and attacked me for my politics but under the guise of slut shaming me and going extra miles to protect my assaulters to make my politics look bad, I'm a girl of course I've been too fkn busy with all this repression bs to properly process the fact the guy I trusted pinned me down and breathed down my neck as he forced himself all over me for hours while I was completely voiceless because people are too fucking busy being the biggest reactionaries fucks ever to me, I'm a girl of course I'll voice the emotional personal public and political backlash I received after being SAed and boys will plug their ears with their fingers and go "not all men not all men not all men" instead of listening.
I can't at this point, I've read ten times more theory that all of my classmates combined (hell if any of them read a single essay) I go out and actually touch grass I protest I organize I mobilize I go out into the community and like do shit??? if you're so damn confident about your politics then I don't see you doing anything for it?
and the fucking racist ass Zionists literally hearing the worst atrocities ever livestreamed to billions of eyes doubling down on their racism, I can't at this point and then other leftists get mad that I don't "educate them" bitch what is there to educate with these mfs??? do you want me to get hate crimed??
maybe this isn't bullying and I'm overexaggerating, but I swear to god nobody stands up for me not even my friends because everyone's scared of being treated they way I am, I get harassed by boys regularly, nearly entire classes talk about me loudly and I'm so tired I'm going to implode
that was a long rant that went nowhere mb. I'm still a radical at the end of the day. I'm Korean, my country survived two waves of colonization (arguably second one is still ongoing)/two occupations, a massive genocide, and multiple dictatorships, I can make it. I have bigger fish to fry even if I'm on the verge of a mental break at school half the time So I'll be at the national rally tomorrow, get there nice and early to help my comrades organize and set up, and I won't lose sight of the goal in the end, I'll keep reading theory, I'll keep writing my little praxis pieces, I'll keep learning, and if it'll find me in this lifetime I'll be ready to go when the revolution strikes
Palestine freed us all, Palestine will be free.

Recently turned 29yr old guy from Michigan who's struggled with online dating and dating in general for the past 12yrs with not much success.
About me: I'm 5'7, white with brown hair and eyes, wear glasses, and got an average body. Open to dating a lady of any body type and race, I'm not a judgemental guy at all with looks or personality.
I'm not very religious, and I'd prefer not to date a lady who's super conservative. But I'm also a gamer and primarily play on Xbox, watch hockey when it's on, I also got a growing collection of hockey jerseys as well.
I currently work full-time but it gets lonely most of the time and I want to get out and explore. I do like traveling and am open to possibly meeting ladies from other countries if we vibe well and we talk for a few months. I've only been to the UK/Scotland last summer so I'm fairly familiar with that country.
I've also worked for Walt Disney World in FL a few years ago so I got stories about that, and I also have 2 cats.
I can be shy and awkward at times (in person), but I'd like someone to be affectionate with and care for, I'm definitely aiming for a long term relationship at my age.
If interested send me a chat with a pic and a little about you and where you are from and I'll return the favor

https://archive.ph/J9bA6
Only those of very hard hearts can fail to admire Beth, the heroine of Walter Tevis’s magnificent novel, and now a popular television series, The Queen’s Gambit. We love the idea of her, a girl who makes good, starting off from very modest beginnings. She overcomes alcohol and drug addictions and rises to the very top of her profession: chess.
But Beth’s story raises the question as to why there are so few female champion chess players.
At time of writing, there are 1,731 chess grandmasters, the acknowledged leaders in their field. In order to enter this honored company, a player needs to have attained a 2500 Elo rating from the International Chess Federation at any point in their career, and earned two favorable tournament results, referred to as norms. For some perspective, my own rating was around 1700 when I played in tournaments, which means I barely know which way the knight moves, so any grandmaster who couldn’t beat me with queen odds ought to be ashamed of himself.
How many women currently hold the grandmaster title? Only 37 as of January 2021. That’s just 2 percent. There are several hypotheses bruited about to account for this gargantuan disproportion.
1. Sexism
Sexism is the explanation offered by all too many reviewers of The Queen’s Gambit, yet there was only one instance of it in the book. Namely, when the then unrated Beth Harmon entered her first tournament. Relegated to the female section, her first two opponents were women. That is hardly a ringing endorsement for the sexism hypothesis.Are there any “male only” chess tournaments? Not to my knowledge, at least not for the last three decades. There may be a few ignorant parents who tell their daughters that chess is unfeminine and that nice girls do not do that, but this hardly explains the phenomenon mentioned above. (Hint: For single women wishing to meet a guy, enter a chess tournament! The odds are fantastically in your favor!)

2. Less Participation

Considering my hint above, this is indeed correct, but this is at least as much an effect of this phenomenon as it is the cause. Females are perhaps just less interested in this nerdy game than males, many of whom are effectively addicted to it.

3. Differing Testosterone Levels

With testosterone comes competitiveness. Even including chess’s many draws, this Game of Kings is highly competitive. Although the players sit on their rears for hours on end, their heart beats are similar to those of marathon runners. They sweat bullets with no obvious physical exertion. Boxers do too, but theirs is not merely a mental exercise.

4. Geography and Spatial Awareness

Chess is a game of geography. Good players keep their eyes riveted on 64 spaces. It may well be that men are, to a far greater degree than women, hardwired topographically.An obvious instance of this is that men generally have a better sense of direction than women. Why should this be? One hypothesis stems from sociobiology, or evolutionary psychology. When our species was living in trees or caves long ago, women stayed close to home base, picking berries, washing, cooking, and cleaning.Men, by contrast, went a-hunting. This activity took them dozens, perhaps scores of miles away from their starting points. If they didn’t have a good sense of direction and a good feel for geography, they perished, leaving less genetic material to the next generation. The environment selected in favor of geographical expertise for men to a far greater degree than for women. As chess is a geographical game, males have a decided advantage.

5. Variance

The standard deviation of male abilities is far greater than that of females. Women are God’s, or nature’s, insurance policy. Men are His, or its, crap shoot.We find very few women in mental institutions, prisons, or homeless shelters. These places are far more often inhabited by men. People of this ilk often lie two, three, or even four standard deviations below the mean. Similarly, we see very few women on the outer reaches of STEM, economics, and, yes, chess.Former Harvard President Larry Summers was once forced to vacate his office by the wokesters of the day for musing on this subject, but that does not render this hypothesis false.Make no mistake, chess, at top levels, takes a lot of brain power. You have to memorize hundreds of opening moves. Success does not come by seeing into the future of the game by a mere half dozen moves. Triple that, and you are closer to the miracles these brainiacs often perform. But there are very few women with abilities two, three, and four standard deviations above the mean.Does this mean girls should not be taught chess and that women should not play this game? Of course not. That would be preposterous. Everyone should enjoy whatever pursuits ring their bells. But we should not be surprised at male dominance at the leading edge of this quintessentially intellectual sport.

When I was halfway through my online college course (2 year course) they finally sent us a laptop that they say is worth "$2000" (utter BS). Im in a 3D game design and development program and this laptop cannot run any of our programs. I have no need for this laptop and im looking to sell it. The specs are as follows:
Lenovo ThinkPad P15s Gen 1 i7-10510U 16GB DDR4 @ 2666 (1x8GB @ 2666 and 1x8GB @ 3200) 512GB PCIe TLC storage (SSD of some sort, uncertain if its NVMe) Quadro P520 2GB
Im located in Canada so CAD or USD pricing would be best

What is the course load % for a 0.5 summer intersession course, I couldn't find this info online.

I am considering applying to the program (potentially for Spring 2025 but probably Fall 2025) and would appreciate some feedback into my potential course selections/ordering given my background and goals.
Background: I have a BS in Mathematics, an MS in Statistics and ~3 YOE as a Data Scientist. My roles have been mainly applied ML related - building ML models and collaborating with Machine Learning Engineers to get them into production. Programming languages I have used include Python (professionally), R (grad school), and Java (one course in undergrad). Familiar with git. Use AWS at work. No experience in C/C++, but planning to take a MOOC for that. Also planning to take at least the DS&A MOOC recommended by GT.
Goals: Personally and professionally I would like to gain a better understanding of CS fundamentals / SWE skills with the goal to pivot to a Machine Learning Engineering role. My ideal role would still involve building models but also working closer to the systems/infra and include SWE type work. Also interested in MLOps; if any courses use tools like Dockek8s that would be awesome. To summarize, I am targeting an MLE role and feel it would be best to choose the Computing Systems specialization to complement my math/stats background.
From reading reviews and Reddit posts I have picked the following courses in this order, planning to take 1 course per semester as I intend to work full time during the program.
Course Plan:

Semester	Course
Fall 2025	CS 6200 - GIOS
Spring 2026	CS 6210 - AOS
Summer 2026	CS 6250 - CN
Fall 2026	CS 6211 - SDCC
Spring 2027	CS 7643 - DL
Summer 2027	CS 6290 - HPCA
Fall 2027	CSE 6220 - HPC
Spring 2028	CS 8803-O21 - GPU Hardware/Software
Summer 2028	CS 7650 - NLP
Fall 2028	CS 6515 - GA

Questions - Is DC worth trying to fit in? I have read it's a demanding but rewarding course, but I am not sure the value add relative to the other courses I am taking. The only course I am not 100% intent on taking is NLP, but that would mean swapping one of the lightest course loads for one of the heaviest. - Do the courses I have chosen for the summer semesters seem good? Since it's a shorter semester I chose those with low workloads (CN/NLP). Is HPCA a good candidate for the third summer course, or is there a better pick? - I have looked at omscs.rocks to check general course availability, and I think I should be able to get into these classes in this order. If not, does anyone have some recommendations for backup courses?
Thanks for any feedback :)

Flat DR is becoming more commonplace (thanks to % DR negation doing the same), and I wanted to do an analysis on how much flat damage reduction is realistic for different types of units and why.
For anyone new to the concept of damage reduction, I'll explain how it differs from percentage-based damage reduction.

X% vs. X

Percentage-based damage reduction is a skill effect that reduces incoming damage after Atk, Def, and Res stats are factored in by a percentage.

• It is recognizable by the verbiage of "reduces damage by X%", which is NOT to be confused with "reduces damage by X% of Y", which would return a flat number.
• Unless this effect is stated in a Special, it is able to be reduced and pierced by skills like Deadeye, Lethality, Phys. Null Follow, etc.
• These effects stack multiplicatively (e.g., two skills that reduce damage by 40% would not result in an 80% reduction, but 64%.
• When both %-based DR and flat DR are active, the percentage-based one is factored in first.

Flat damage reduction (or damage negation) is a more recent skill effect that reduces incoming damage, after the usual damage calculation, by a flat number.

• It is recognizable by "reduces damage by X% of Y", "reduces damage by X", or "reduces damage by [phrase that returns a number, like "total bonuses on unit"]". Sometimes it requires calculation to get the number (like with 20% of unit's Def, for example), but sometimes skills explicitly state "reduce damage by 8" for example.
• When active, this effect is never able to be pierced or reduced. It can only be combated with more damage. As a result, "counters" to this effect have already existed in the form of true damage.
• These effects stack additively (e.g. two skills that would reduce damage by 8 will reduce damage by a total of 16).
• Flat DR is factored in after %-based. An example of this is:
  • 60 damage being dealt to a unit with 50% DR and 12 flat DR.
  • 60 is reduced to 30.
  • 30 is reduced to 18.
  • 18 damage is dealt.
• Sources: Laguz Friend, Atk/Spd Excel (PP &/or on Specials), Exclusive skills

In the above example, how these two effects work is clear. Percentage-based DR can create a much greater reduction in damage (at the cost of its ability to be reduced). Flat DR usually creates a small reduction in damage, but it's more reliable and a critical effect for omni-tanks to take as little damage as possible.
These two effects are best when paired together. Basically, percentage-based DR makes big numbers into smaller numbers, and then flat DR turns those smaller numbers into tank-able numbers.
The best way to gain access to this combo on a tank is to get a %-DR Special:

• Godlike Reflexes
• Aegis/Pavise
• Any Special that is Engaged to Ike with a reliable way of charging it up.

as well as a source of flat DR, which are mostly on exclusive skills (and Laguz Friend, and Excel on PP & Specials).

How much Flat DR can we expect per unit (for now)?

Flat DR so far has been balanced according to a few factors such as:

1. Conditionality
2. Activation on specific strikes (e.g. only first/follow-up)
3. Other trade-offs
4. Placement in kit

Highly conditional flat DR can reach very high numbers, but as a result is able to be reduced to 0 by counterplay, unlike effects that use a number based on the user's stat.
When flat DR applies on only a specific strike, it tends to be higher. Similarly, other trade-offs can bring up the value of flat DR.
Finally, sacrificing a passive skill slot (B skill) seems to increase the value of flat DR because it cannot stack with Laguz Friend and also sacrifices other effects that can greatly enhance a tank's gameplay (Null C-Disrupt most notably).
Here are the classes or tiers of flat DR so far, their average X value, as well as the units in them *limited to one skill, this is not including units who can stack their weapon with Laguz Friend for example):

1. All or Nothing (Super-High Ceiling)
   1. The source of damage negation can be absolutely countered, but has a high ceiling as a result.
   2. These units with such high flat DR either sacrifice their B skill or have drastically low Spd causing them to almost guarantee having to take two or more strikes if they cannot kill immediately on their counterattack.
   3. Examples:
      1. Eikthrynir: X is calculated as 50% of the highest total bonuses on nearby allies. From just his weapon's bonuses, this should be 9. With Spd/Res+6 on those same allies, it goes up to 18. Under extreme circumstances (double buffs due to Harsh Command or Attuned Micaiah), this can come up to 32 or more from this skill alone. However, him and his allies can be panicked and all DR will be lost.
      2. Attuned Caeda: X is the highest total bonuses on nearby allies (double the deer man, but also takes up her B skill slot). With her base kit and her bonuses not negated, this is 24 flat DR. It can go up to double that (48 or more) with flipped penalties and no panic.
      3. Nidhoggr: X is the damage dealt to foe (max 20). Yes she deals 8 combat-beginning damage so that base value should be 8, but Breath of Life can counter this.
2. Higher Value, Higher Cost (25% or 30% of a Stat)
   1. There's a slight increase in the value of damage negation at a cost. This difference of 5% or 10% of a stat when dealing with modern stats can
   2. For all of the below tiers, the estimated value of X is calculated using only their weapon, their stats with flowers and a boon in the respective stat, and an average of +10 to that stat to account for passive skills.
   3. Examples:
      1. New Year Nerthuz: X = 25% of Spd, but only on the foe's first attacks. This value is about 19.
      2. Diamant: X = 25% of Def, but negates all non-Special % DR on himself and hinders his own ability to follow-up. This value is about 15. This is due to only getting Def+5 from his weapon and not having highest base stat either.
      3. Rhea: X = 30% of Res, but only on follow-up attacks. This value is about 19.
      4. Edward: X = 16, but only when getting hit with an offensive Special.
3. The Blueprint (20% of a Stat)
   1. This was the introduction of this effect. 20% of a stat, after in-combat effects. When using the Atk stat, the percentage is reduced due to weapon might, so it becomes 15%.
   2. Note the outlier in Bridal Embla (an amazing unit). Not only does she get higher stats, but she's the only significantly faster unit in this class. All other units calculate flat DR based off of a defensive stat and as such have lower Spd mostly and risk follow-ups.
   3. Examples:
      1. Spring Maria: The original, getting 20% of her Def as damage negation. The value is about 13.
      2. Askr: X = 20% of Def; it's about 13.
      3. New Year Askr: X = 20% of Def; about 12.
      4. Bridal Embla: X = 20% of Spd; valued at about 15, thanks to her modern weapon granting about 10 more stats than other units in this class.
      5. Brave Dimitri: X = 20% of Def; about 12.
      6. Dimitri: X = 15% of Atk; about 12.
      7. Gatekeeper: X = 20% of Def; about 12.
      8. Midori: X = 15% of Atk; about 13.
      9. Ninja Cherche: X = 20% of Def; about 12.
      10. Laguz Friend Users: X = 20% of Def/Res, should be in line with the above, those with modern weapons and refines (+13-15 to stats) hitting Embla's 15, otherwise hitting around 12.
4. The New Normal (Fixed Value or 15% of a Stat)
   1. Basically, you need flat DR to survive now, so this is added to a unit's kit who also has other means of survival such as overall high stat swings, higher Spd, infantry skill access, % DR in the same skill, is a grail unit (lol), etc.
   2. Examples:
      1. Rinkah: X = 15% of Def, but only on first attacks; valued at around 9.
      2. Cormag: X = 15% of Def, valued at around 7.
      3. Edward: X = 8, unless when getting hit with an offensive Special.
      4. Halloween Corrin: X = 8, on defensive Special trigger.
      5. Brave Corrin: X = 7, on foe's first attacks only.
      6. Legendary Corrin: X = 7, on foe's first attacks only.
      7. Say'ri: X = 7, on foe's first attacks only.
      8. Fallen Ike: X = 7, on foe's first attacks only.
      9. Mozu: X = 10
      10. Divine Veine (Stone): X = 10, when hit with an offensive Special.
5. We Used to be a country A proper country
   1. The lowest amount of flat DR which belongs to skills that are either outdated or have a lot else going for them, but each big of flat DR can contribute to survival. Upgrades to these inheritable skills could become very relevant.
   2. Examples:
      1. Shield Pulse: X = 5, on defensive Special trigger.
      2. Hardy Fighter: X = 5, on defensive Special trigger.
      3. Summer Fjorm: X = 5, on defensive Special trigger.

Final Notes

Of course there are some units I probably missed and in-combat all of these numbers will look different according to each situation. But this is to paint a general picture of how flat DR is currently balanced in the game. The key notes are that:

• Super-high flat DR ceilings are not meant to be commonplace: they either require significant setup or can be countered to bring the value down to zero or at least to the lowest classes on this list..
• Higher DR comes at a relative cost, at least for now. 20% is standard (or 15% for Atk-based).
• Any flat DR is good and can help a tank survive: units on the lower end of this list have other means of survival and flexibility, despite how broken Attuned Caeda appears when working at her very best (and she's still pressed for NCD).
• IS tries to balance their skill effects, and even if they are not successful at this ($$$), there is at least graspable logic to how they scale flat DR.
• They will probably release an inheritable Special with % DR in it like Vital Astra should have been because the combo of % DR and flat DR is the current meta.

It was in sixth grade that students received their first wand and learned their first spells. But they learned that it wasn’t like in the movies they watched, where the main characters were prodigies and not only mastered easy spells but accomplished difficult ones as well. They learned the basics and learned slowly, and much of it surprised them, like the amount of effort that needed to be put into diction and mental focus, not just waving their wand.
One of my students was doing quite well and, I assume since he thought movies were much like real life, asked when we would be doing more advanced spells. He, and several others, were visibly disappointed when I explained how slowly they would be learning magic, step by step.
“All right, I think it’s important that you understand something,” I told them, leaning against my desk as I looked out at them. Taking a breath and letting it out, wondering how to phrase what I wanted to communicate to them, I eventually asked, “Who wants to learn fire spells?”
Many hands went up. Not all, but quite a few.
“Who thinks that they’re ready to do fire spells?”
At their age, they recognized the difference in phrasing and there were hands that went up, but slower and with more caution.
I grinned. “Who wants to hear about the time I first tried a fire spell?”
You won’t be surprised to hear all hands went up at that one.
“All right, well,” I said, folding my arms, “I’d been doing magic for almost two years, and became very comfortable with my wand. Of course, when I say that, I mean I had just finished seventh grade. Levitation had come easily to me, and I was great at it by that point, able to lift as much as I could with my arms. Wind spells…water spells…a few others. I’d gotten quite good at the easy stuff. But I wanted to do more. I wanted to do something cool.”
I grimaced, hinting at the bad ending to the story. “I was at my desk in my room, and I’d taken a candle from my mother’s bathroom. For a few weeks I’d practiced just as much as I would learning any other spell, working on my pronunciation and intent and focus. And that was another hint that something was beyond me; I hadn’t so much as once spoken to someone who was proficient. Learning from someone who knows their stuff is how you discover clever strategies of learning spells, like imagining your pencil is a balloon filled with helium to get better at levitation.”
Several of the students looked curious at that. It was always good to drop in at least a little extra knowledge when going off on a tangent, I figured. “You also learn things like clearing your work area a good amount for fire spells, which I hadn’t read in any of the instructions I’d read online. So, I took my wand, gave the command, and a flicker of flame came from the end of my wand. And caught on the book on a shelf that was only a few inches away from the candle.” A few gasps came from my students, as well as a few embarrassed giggles at the blunder.
“The thing was, I’d done a good job,” I said tiredly. “The flame had caught well. I wasn’t sure what to do, and my mind spun furiously trying to find a solution, and at that point I was mostly worried about getting in trouble. I knew water spells, but of course I didn’t know conjuration, not at a seventh grade level. I rushed to the bathroom and took the toothbrushes out of the cup they were in, filled up the cup with water, and rushed back to my bedroom, splashing it on the fire to try to put it out. But by that point, the fire had spread to more books. One cup of water didn’t cut it.”
At this point, the students started to look concerned. Fire was no joke, they knew that much about magic, and likely they were imagining themselves in such a predicament. What do you do? Do you call a parent? Do you let yourself get in trouble, or risk things getting even more out of control?
“Luckily, the fire alarm on my bedroom ceiling went off, and my mother ran in. She put it out with a conjuration of water, and I was left with half my desk burnt and soggy,” I told them. “And in big trouble. But as you realized while I was telling this story…it could’ve been a lot worse. Now, I’m not telling you this to make you concerned about learning fire spells; I’m telling you this to cover a bigger lesson, which is to remember that the curriculum of magic is laid out in a very specific order, and it’s very important to learn each spell from here to the end of high school, or college, with someone experienced and in a safe environment.
“It’s great fun to go to the pier at the beach and see impressive displays of fire spells, but often you’ll find yourself wondering what it looked like the first time they tried the spell. And it’s not like what you see in movies or shows, because they are concerned with telling a story, not with accuracy. That fire juggler at the pier is much older than you and has been working with fire for many years. Not only that, but when it comes to any dangerous skill, you do get hurt. It’s just part of the deal. The next time you can ask questions of an adult who’s talented in magic that can be dangerous, ask them how often they got hurt first learning. And ask them how often they get hurt, when the last time was that it happened. Learning new tricks, even as an adult, can be dangerous.”
One of the girls in the class raised her hand. “Yes, Leanna?” I spoke.
“Are you good at fire spells now?” she asked.
I grinned. “Yes, but I am not allowed to do them in the classroom.” The sounds of disappointed children echoed through my classroom of students. “You’re eager to learn, that’s good. I hope that excitement stays with you when you need to practice everything in the homework you’ll have. Now, please open your books to chapter three. Speaking of steps, it’s time to take the next one.”

I’ve (26M) struggled with depression and some suicidal ideation on and off since I was 16. It was a long road and took a lot of work on myself and countless hours of therapy, but around the end of 2023, I was in what I now consider to be the peak of my life. I was working a job I mostly liked, two semesters away from finishing my bachelor’s degree online and exercising almost every other day. After years of loneliness, I finally found a friend group I really adored spending time with, and I had a boyfriend with whom I hadn’t even realized I had fallen in love, whom I’d seen for about 6 months. For perhaps the first time, I had a generally positive outlook, I felt confident and attractive, and I had so much going for me. I had no clue that I was about to make a decision that would significantly alter that course and steer me off into the deepest, darkest depression and most relentless desire to end it all that I’ve ever felt. This is a very long and personal post about my decision to have surgery that I now, in hindsight, believe to have been unnecessary. The surgery itself has left me with chronic pain and probably lifelong negative consequences that are far worse than anything I ever experienced prior. I’ve kept most of this to myself other than sharing it with my therapist, and although I’m on the ledge, I think writing it all down and putting it out there may calm me somewhat. I haven’t spared some graphic details of some of the more sensitive changes to my body because I want this to be as detailed and accurate as possible. And anyway, why should I care? I may be dead soon anyway... My hope is that if I share my story, someone, somewhere, might benefit from it and might not make the same mistake I did that has me sincerely wanting to off myself. So here it goes.
Around NovembeDecember 2023, I started experiencing some strange stabbing pain in my upper right abdomen that would come on suddenly and then go away for no obvious reason. I also thought I saw trace amounts of blood in my stool, and this concerned me enough that I reached out to my primary care doctor at the beginning of January. My doctor is always booked for months, so they told me to go to the emergency room. The ER was packed, and I ended up sitting in the waiting room for about eight hours in between going for an ultrasound and a CT scan. I was getting very tired of waiting and was about ready to give up and leave as I had to work early in the morning the next day. Looking back, I wish I had left. Just before I was about to leave, they called me back and told me that they found something on the CT scan called an intussusception in my small bowel. This is a condition where the intestine gets caught on a “lead point” and folds in on itself, sort of like a telescope. It is most often found in infants and is very rarely found in people my age, yet I was told it is a medical emergency because the tissue of my bowel could die if left untreated, and/or the lead point could be a potentially cancerous tumor. They admitted me and told me they would scan me again in the morning because, despite the severity, there was a chance it could resolve. Hearing that I would be staying overnight shocked me, as I had never been hospitalized before, having always been in good physical health. I have never had digestive issues in the past, I’ve never been diagnosed with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis or anything of the sort, and I had never heard of this condition, but every medical professional I spoke to seemed very concerned that I had it. They didn’t have a bed for me in the hospital at that point, so I had to sleep in the packed and quite chaotic ER. About an hour after I was given a bed, a man was admitted a few feet from me who was very aggressive with all of the nurses, screaming and cursing at them throughout the night. I was not allowed to eat or drink, given the possibility of surgery. I struggled to get any sleep in that environment and woke up the next morning feeling very lethargic.
The surgeon and resident came by my bed and we spoke briefly. The surgeon explained that while the condition was serious, if it continued to show up in my CT scans, they could do minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery to resect the piece of my bowel that was telescoped and stitch it back together. I feel they really downplayed the severity of this procedure. I will never forget them saying, “It’s such a small piece of your bowel, you won’t miss it.” They felt that since I was young and otherwise healthy, I should have no problem making a full recovery. I felt confident in the fact that I was speaking to the chief of surgery at the hospital, who has more than twenty years of experience in the field. Then they brought me for my second scan, and within a few hours I was told the intussusception had not resolved. I was admitted to a hospital room, and the resident came to discuss moving forward with the surgery. My first impulse was “absolutely not,” but I quickly second-guessed myself. Everything I saw in the limited research I was able to do on my phone stated that this was indeed a serious condition that warranted surgery. In that moment, it seemed like the reasons not to go through with it were somewhat vain, such as not wanting the scars and having to forgo lifting weights at the gym for some time. Though it didn’t quite make sense to me that they wanted to operate on the complete opposite side of my body from the one that was in pain and which brought me into the ER in the first place. When I asked the resident about this, he responded, “We don’t understand how referred pain works,” Okay, fair enough, I thought. More than anything, I thought that if a doctor was in front of me, telling me what was going on with my body was an emergency situation that warranted immediate surgery, I should probably listen to them. They’re the “experts,” after all. And given the state I was in, having been in the hospital for over 24 hours at that point, running on very little sleep and nothing to eat, I don’t think I really had the capacity to fully parse what was going on, but given the doctors level of concern, it seemed like I urgently had to make a decision. After about an hour of talking it over with my mother, even though I never had any pain in the area they were about to operate on, I signed the consent papers. (Biggest fucking mistake of my life) I remember they listed risks of things that could go wrong during or shortly after the surgery, such as infection, bowel perforation, etc. They did not mention the procedure’s possible long-term consequences, and neither the surgeon nor resident ever mentioned possible long-term complications, and I didn’t think to ask. I had no experience with this kind of thing whatsoever; I am not a doctor, I don’t know any doctors, and no one I know has ever had abdominal surgery… I was so naive to trust these people, but I did. In fact, I trusted them so much that I was not terribly scared of the procedure I was about to undergo. Again, I chalk that up to the reduced mental capacity I was in, given a tough overnight stay in the ER. I remember the adrenaline rush as I was wheeled down to the operating room. I was singing one of my favorite songs in my head, hyping myself up for the procedure ahead of me. The last thing I remember was one of the OR nurses telling my mother not to worry, that the surgeon was “the best,” and that they had even operated on her husband.
I woke up high as a kite. I heard one of the nurses say I had been given fentanyl, which I remember freaked me out; I had forgotten it is more than a street drug and actually has legitimate uses. The procedure had gone fine, and I was discharged only a day or two later, with my only guidance upon discharge being not to lift heavy objects and “take it easy,” I was in some pain, but it was to be expected at that point and was well controlled by combining Tylenol and Advil. The surgeon called later that week to inform me that the pathology report had come back and that the lead point was simply “some swollen lymph nodes,” I was relieved to hear that it was not cancer. At my follow-up appointment two weeks later, I reported feeling pretty much fine. I had been granted medical leave and short-term disability from my job for six weeks following the surgery. This was the full length of time after which the surgeons expected I would recover fully. I used the time off to hang out with friends and my boyfriend and to focus on finishing what would have been my final semester of school. Those were the last few weeks that I felt somewhat normal despite what I had just gone through. I had no idea what was about to come.
About 5 weeks post-op is when I first began experiencing worse pain deep in my abdomen, right where I had the surgery, plus the pain in my upper right abdomen had not gone away. This new pain is crampy, yet sometimes stabbing, and had seemed to worsen with activity; I have experienced it every single day, nearly every hour, to varying degrees, since the beginning of February. That was also when I began regularly bloating and having difficulty going to the bathroom. No matter how hard I try to push, I can’t fully evacuate my bowels. (This is a nightmare for someone who has receptive anal sex like I used to do regularly. It is now impossible). With the emergence of all these symptoms, I felt very, very scared that there was something else wrong with me. And, of course, this all happened in the week when I was set to return to work. I have a physically demanding customer service job, and I was in so much pain that I found it impossible to be nice to the customers or even stand, so I left and, thankfully, was allowed to take the rest of the week off to figure things out. I obviously called my surgeon, but it also prompted me to do deeper research into the complications that can develop following abdominal surgery. I began pouring over medical journals, trying to figure out what was going on in my body on my own. That was when I first learned about “surgical adhesions.” These are fibrous bands of scar tissue that can develop due to the incisions made during surgery and handling of the bowel. As your body heals from the trauma of surgery, this scar tissue forms and can cause your intestine to stick to other organs or structures in your body. According to medical literature, they form in 90% of all patients who undergo abdominal surgery, but not all adhesions cause complications like what I’ve experienced. They are not easy to diagnose as they are impossible to visualize on any imaging tests, they do not go away on their own (it’s scar tissue), and the only treatment is surgically cutting them apart, which is risky, given that there’s a strong chance they will just grow back and possibly be even worse. This was obviously terrifying to me, but when I asked the surgeon about this, they said, “There’s very little chance that’s what’s happening,” given that the procedure was laparoscopic, not open. I scheduled another appointment with them, wherein they seemed quite dismissive of my concerns. They said the pain was likely “incisional” (it wasn’t and isn’t) but that they would order another CT scan so we could see what was going on. They also wrote me a script for gabapentin, an anticonvulsant meant to prevent seizures that is used off-label to treat pain and anxiety, with the qualifier that they would not write a script for anything stronger, basically implying that I was seeking narcotics, which was not at all the case, and which I found extremely offensive.
My next CT scan was scheduled about a month following that appointment in early March. In the interim, I began taking the gabapentin. I used more than I was prescribed because it was the only way I was able to control the pain and allow myself to feel comfortable at work. I didn’t anticipate the changes it would cause to my mood and behavior. In addition to feeling depressed and scared, I was also becoming easily emotionally dysregulated in ways I believe I would have been able to control prior to taking the medication. But when I didn’t take it, I was in pretty bad pain almost all the time, and I didn’t understand why at that point. My boyfriend noticed these changes in my mood and decided he needed space from me to protect his emotional wellbeing. I didn’t blame him then, and I still don’t, but I miss him terribly. We were supposed to remain “friends,” and he at least pretended he wanted that for a bit of time. At that point, I became determined to ween myself off the gabapentin and continue to work on improving my mental and physical health, for myself, but also for him; as I said, I really loved him. Later that week, after we split, I had my CT scan, and the surgeon called to tell me that it looked like I was just constipated. They advised me to take Miralax daily to ease that constipation, which should hopefully make me feel better. To me, this seemed like a huge relief. I started taking the Miralax, and at that point, I started exercising and lifting weights again. I also started trying to bulk up again, which had been an important part of my fitness journey prior to the surgery.
So April rolls around, and I am still trying my best to resume my normal life, which felt possible again at that point. I did end up successfully weening myself off gabapentin. With this newfound reinvigoration, I attempted to get my boyfriend back. We would make plans, but then he would reschedule again and again. Eventually, he kept our plans, and we met up for a talk in the park. We obviously had a lot to talk about in our relationship, at which point he told me that he simply was not attracted to me anymore. This was devastating news, as that was the first time I realized it was really over. Before I had thought that if I could show him how much I was trying to get back to the place I was before the surgery, he would stick around, but that was the moment I realized it was impossible for him to see me in the light he once did. Nevertheless, I tried to push on, kept going to the gym, and kept trying to get my life back. I was still seeing my friends regularly, and I was able to push myself to get through work, even though it was painful and hard. Plus, I was still working on my degree despite not feeling able to give it my best effort and focus with everything going on. I was still motivated to keep going, and I thought things might improve from there.
Well, lo and behold, they did not. One day in early April, I was sitting on the couch, sort of mindlessly snacking on some almonds before I was set to go have drinks with friends and see a concert. Immediately afterward, I felt that pain again in my abdomen. Despite that, I was really excited to see my friends and see the show. We met at a bar, where I had three cocktails before we made our way to the venue. I drank one or two more while the opener played. But by the time the headliner came on, I ended up in so much pain that I told my friends quite regrettably that I had to leave. I walked home and ate a small snack, wrongfully thinking it might make me feel better, before popping a melatonin and heading to bed. I woke up around 2 AM in the most intense pain I have experienced both before and after the surgery. I was extremely bloated and unable to pass gas or move my bowels. I had read somewhere that this was a sign of bowel obstruction and that I needed to seek medical attention. I made the decision to go to the ER. I walked down the stairs to leave, and as I did, I felt myself begin to vomit. Thankfully I was able to make it to the sink as I puked up what I imagine was that snack I’d had before bed. Shortly after, I arrived at the ER, this time choosing a different facility from the one where the surgeon had dismissed all of my post-surgical concerns. I was quickly admitted and given another CT scan. They confirmed my bowel was obstructed and told me they would place a tube into my nose down to my stomach to try to pump some of the blockage out. I asked the ER doctor if I was going to need to have surgery, to which he replied, “It’s a strong possibility.” This was horrifying to me. Getting the tube inserted into my nose was so painful, and I was screaming in agony the entire time. Then they gave me morphine, and I passed out. The details and timeline of that hospital stay are somewhat hazy in my mind, but I ended up being there for four days, over which I was given a “gastro graph challenge” test, wherein I was instructed to drink a contrast element which would be visualized by a series of Xrays so the doctors could monitor if anything was passing through my intestines. I met with another surgeon, whom I found to be much more attentive than my prior one, or at least simply possessing superior active listening skills. In fact, I felt that all of the staff at this second hospital were a lot more sensitive to my needs than the first. I really wish I had gone there the first time, as it’s the best hospital in the city. Add that to my long list of mistakes… Anyway.
Despite her more positive demeanor, she recommended another emergency surgery, this time a laparotomy (open) surgery to resect my bowel a second time. Her hypothesis was that the anastomosis (the medical term for the connection formed between my bowel loops during the first surgery) could be too narrow to allow food to pass through properly. I asked this new surgeon if it was possible I had adhesions causing this problem, and unlike the last one, she said, “It’s possible,” especially given that these symptoms began emerging a few weeks after the first surgery. But, like I said, they don’t really know what’s going on until they cut you open and go in there. Given that I am now much more aware of the risks of surgery and the risks of having a second procedure, I was fervently against going under the knife again. I simply couldn’t handle it. So I opted for conservative management, which meant waiting it out, taking an enema, and eventually getting back on a liquid and then solid diet. Thankfully, sitting in the hospital being NPO (Latin for nil per os - “nothing by mouth”) and taking the gastro graph made it pass eventually, and I didn’t have to have a second surgery. I was discharged from the hospital with instructions to schedule another diagnostic test called a “small bowel series,” in which they use xrays to track the amount of time it takes liquid to pass through your digestive system and to start a “low residue” diet- meaning eating very little fiber. Suddenly gone from my diet are all of the fruits and vegetables I once loved, and I can’t eat nuts or seeds (It seems to me that those almonds caused the obstruction in the first place). Basically, I’m now forced to exist on a diet of the most processed foods imaginable because although they are demonstrably unhealthy, that is all that my body is now able to safely digest.
After leaving that second hospital stay, I proceeded to delve even further into research about not only long-term abdominal surgery complications such as adhesions but also the nature of adult intussusceptions in general. I once again started furiously googling, finding results from medical journals and personal accounts from Reddit. I came to the conclusion that intussusceptions in adults, while ostensibly serious, have a strong possibility of resolving on their own, especially when they present in the small bowel, in the absence of vomiting (I never vomited before going to the hospital in January), when there is no obvious lead point (they couldn’t see it on my scans) and there is no obstruction (I was never obstructed before the surgery). Furthermore, while intussusception does present with blood in the stool, it is usually described as “currant jelly stool” (something I don’t recommend you google because it looks atrocious), which is not even close to the trace amounts of blood I saw in my own stool. (But no one ever asked, so how would I know the difference?) I never experienced any pain whatsoever in the area of my small bowel before the surgery. And yet I was told by a doctor that I was experiencing a medical emergency, which might have been caused by some malignant growth, which scared the shit out of me and made me feel at the time that immediate action was necessary. At one point, I even found a paper that attributed intussusception to cannabis use, which I had engaged in that week. In these papers, the authors highlight that these intussusceptions were transient and did not require surgical intervention. And on the point of adhesions, they are not easily diagnosed, and they are not easily treatable without surgical intervention; and said intervention is a cache 22 scenario because every time you get cut open, you risk growing back even more adhesions.
With all of this knowledge, I became absolutely distraught. I was never informed that by having this procedure performed, I would be at this increased risk of experiencing bowel obstruction. Like most people, I literally had no idea what an “adhesion” even was. What made me lose hope the most was that it seems as if doctors do these surgeries and simply ignore adhesion as a consequence because they don’t have any feasible way to prevent it or treat it without potentially creating more adhesion. So, although I was released from the hospital having avoided a second surgery, I felt more lost and hopeless than ever. I simply couldn’t cope with the realization that this would be something I would deal with for the rest of my life, something I could’ve avoided had I never agreed to get the first surgery because although I had that original pain I mentioned earlier- which has still continued to this day, it wasn’t and isn’t anything close to how excruciating the obstruction was, and it wasn’t really disrupting my life in the way the post-surgical pain has. But under the guidance of doctors, I opted to permanently alter my body, and there’s no going back. I feel so incredibly stupid for being deceived by these “medical professionals” who didn’t take the time to understand what was actually going on with me and chose to take an overly aggressive course of action that has left me permanently altered, in pain, and completely diminished my quality of life.
That week after leaving the hospital was truly the most suicidal I have ever felt. As I mentioned, I’ve dealt with suicidal ideation on and off since my adolescence. I’ve always had latent thoughts about wanting to die, wanting to escape, feeling like I’m hopeless and there’s no use trying to better myself. But this time, the desire to end my life was so much more intense. I became extremely disassociated from everything in life. In that week following my second hospitalization, there was absolutely nothing that could bring me joy. Before the surgery, I used to find deep pleasure in simply walking around my neighborhood for at least an hour every day. But I couldn’t do it anymore because walking gives me time to think, and thinking is too painful. It always leads back to the realization of the way I am now. Nothing could make me smile or laugh. I couldn’t even listen to music, one of my favorite things in the world. I became completely devoid of all emotions as my research transitioned away from my various new ailments and into ways I could end my life.
The rest of April and May passed by in a blur. Over that time, I’ve had two more appointments with the surgeons I met at the second hospital, a small bowel study (a more in-depth series of x-rays tracking the transit time of liquid through the GI tract), and a colonoscopy and endoscopy. Those have not yielded any significant findings as to what is going on, making me believe even more that all of these problems are being caused by adhesions. However, the small bowel study did reveal that my stomach is slightly herniated, which I believe is the cause of the original pain that I sought care for in the first place. At my last appointment, I was told to see a “small bowel specialist” GI doctor. But that was three weeks ago, and I haven’t even been able to get an appointment with them. I’m on a waiting list, but I imagine I’m looking at many months before I can get an appointment. I don’t know what they’re going to do for me. I don’t know that there’s anything that can be done besides more surgery, and I am very fearful about that. I fear the only way that these fucking doctors who fucked me up in the first place are going to even try to help me is if I’m obstructed again. But the changes to my diet, as much as I hate them, have kept me in a more manageable amount of pain and out of the hospital for now.
It is now June, and I am shocked that I am still here and confused about what to do now. Despite the diet, I still feel pain and discomfort at some point in the day, every single day. I think about wanting this all to end all of the time. I have not attempted again, though I did pick up another nitrogen tank, and I’ve also stockpiled a 90 day supply of my antidepressant, so at least I have the option. I am drinking two bottles of wine or half a bottle of vodka nearly every night. Alcohol is the only thing that seems to quiet my thoughts enough to get through each evening. I am sitting here in a cycle where I think about doing it, but I still feel obligated to go to work, to see my friends, and to feed my cat. My life has continued, but I don’t feel like I’m living anymore; I merely exist. I feel extremely unattractive because although I look the same as I did on the outside, I’m overcome with never ending emotional pain and turmoil on the inside. I am now unable to take care of myself and be on top of my life the way I used to be. After the second hospitalization, I dropped out of school and have no plans to continue, as I won’t need a bachelor’s degree when I’m dead. I have stopped exercising altogether, as it feels like there’s no point in trying to improve or take care of a body that has been permanently broken. Through all of this, I’ve lost much of my confidence and I feel I have completely lost my identity. I miss that old me so much. I miss my boyfriend so much. Plans with my friends are sometimes the only thing that keeps me going, and I am extremely grateful for them, but despite their continued presence, I feel extremely isolated and lonely. It’s hard to explain what I’ve been through to people without the context of all that has happened. I don’t have the energy to share it with them. And I feel if I speak about what I’m going through, I will feel like a burden, killing the vibe, and I don’t want that.
I have never felt this alienated from my body and from everything in life. I cannot cope with the fact that things will never be how they were before. I feel so incredibly distraught that I threw away what was shaping up to be the best days of my life. There’s nothing I or anyone else can do to change what has happened to me. It took me such a long time to get to the place I was in before the surgery. It was a brief and beautiful couple of months, but it’s over, and there’s no way for me to return. Even if there was, I don’t have that much of a fight left in me. I feel like such a fucking idiot for allowing the doctors to do this to me. I look around at all the happy people around me and know that I am dragging them down with my depression. I am tired of feeling helpless and like a burden on everyone I love. I am a shell of the person I once was. Ending it all is the singular thing that’s in my control. It is the only way to end all of this pain and suffering and stop the concern and confusion of my loved ones. I know that my exit will be painful to them, but they will all get over it in time. But me? I don’t think I will ever get over this. I will never be able to accept this horrible choice that I made. I am so tired of living this way. I am supposed to turn 27 soon, but I really don’t want to live to see my birthday. I have nothing to celebrate. My life is completely, irreversibly fucked. I don’t know when I will go, but it will be sooner rather than later. I am so sorry to everyone. I know this will hurt. I just can’t go on living this way. To all the people I care about, know that I love you, and I am so thankful you were part of my life. I know you will all go on to do great things without me. This entire saga has been unbearable; my life has spun out of control, and suicide is the only way to end my suffering. I’m sorry. I’m signing off.
TL;DR: Doctors performed a surgery I now think was unnecessary and the complications make me want to kill myself.

I’ve been having a lot of concerns with SNHU as a new admission. The communication in the beginning (the actually getting me to apply part) was so good. I felt very confident in applying. I was mostly switching to this school to save money and have a “easier“ workload. And before anyone jumps on me, my “easier” really just means not having proctored exams because I cannot cope with them lol
Anyway, now that I’ve been accepted (a few MONTHS ago), getting anything rolling past that has been… impossible. Financial Aid office apparently won’t get to my package until September which is… fine… I guess I’ll just start then. Besides that, I’m having a hard time even figuring out where to go to look at any sort of progress on my admissions. I can’t even login to the online student portal, I get an error every time about a one time login issue that no one seems to know how to resolve. Then when I was talking to Financial Aid to see where the ball was because they kept sending me emails saying I had unresolved documents but the financial aid portal was saying otherwise, they revealed to me that I need to talk to someone in admissions because apparently I hadn’t even been “matriculated into a program” with SNHU (I don’t even know what that means! Lol)
Idk, this process has just been feeling like an extremely slow mess to me. I’m very concerned. I’m transferring from ASU online and they do have their own flaws of course, as does every college, but they at least have a decent student portal and people to talk to so I can keep track of everything going on and not feel like I’m just sitting in limbo waiting for something to happen… wondering if I’m making a mistake by transferring and if I should just turn back before it’s too late, or just wait it out because maybe the classes will make it worth it come September (hopefully my financial aid is done by then, and I’m “matriculated into a program”)