Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6
Home didn’t feel the same after I returned from the hotel. My dad knew that I knew how he’d gotten that high-paying job. And he knew what I had been doing to help us make ends meet before getting entangled with Creole. It got even worse when one day he walked in on me as I was applying the ointment to cover my scars. That broke him. He started crying uncontrollably upon seeing me with the deep scar on my neck and my missing eye surrounded by my skull. It was the first time I’d seen my dad cry like that. And I couldn’t do anything to console or help him. Because I knew if I did, I would start crying and wouldn’t be able to stop.
We were both at rock bottom, with my mom trying in vain to figure out why we were so upset. Creole must’ve known what I was going through and allowed it to continue. For an entire month, he didn’t call on me for anything. And that worried me more than if he did. Because there was always the looming and constant fear that he would get bored with me. And him being bored with me probably meant my immediate death.
It was a relief when I was home alone again that I received a knock at the door. I looked down at my phone to make sure that I still had plenty of time since my last ointment appointment. Satisfied that I had plenty of time I stood up and answered the door. Seeing that smiling face and red uniform instantly brightened my day a little.
“Hey Jacob, what’s he got for me this time?” I asked him as the forever smiling bellhop stared at me with his button eyes. He happily presented me with an envelope and gave me a little salute at completing his mission. I took the envelope and opened it up, sighing when I saw the all too familiar handwriting.
“Marvelous Ms. Mace! It would seem that I require your skills in another endeavor. Jacob shall escort you to the store, and do make sure to bring all your tools. K.C.” I heavily exhaled through my nose and invited Jacob into the house so I could gather my things.” I quickly ran upstairs and rounded up my lockpicking tools, pepper spray, and this time a pocket knife as well. I’d gotten myself one after the ordeal of the hotel. Just as I was applying more ointment and resetting my timer I heard the front door open and a bunch of grocery bags rustling.
My heart instantly dropped. My mom had gotten back earlier than expected. I quickly finished putting the ointment on and ran downstairs as quickly as I could. I nearly ran into my mom as she was hanging one of the bags on the stair railings.
“Jesus, Maria, Jose, Macedonia!” My mom shouted in surprise. I half expected it to be because of Jacob but a glance around the first floor revealed that he wasn’t anywhere in sight. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.” My mom sighed fanning herself dramatically.
“Sorry Mom,” I apologized, wrapping my arms around her and squeezing her. “I’m going out, ok?” I told her. She looked at me judgementally, mostly at what I was wearing before wishing me good luck and the usual million things to be careful of. I nodded at all of them and parted with a kiss on her cheek. As I exited the front door it was my turn to nearly have a heart attack as Jacob surprised me by poking his head out of the bush next to the front door.
“How’d you get in there?!” I silently shouted at him. He pointed at the open window just above the bush. And I couldn’t help but snort and giggle at the thought of him diving out of the window into the bush once my mom had arrived back at the house. I helped him to get out of the bush and brushed the leaves off of his uniform.
We started making our way towards the voodoo shop all the while my mind continued to wander in various scenarios in which my situation was going to end. Most of them with me and my entire family dead or turned into voodoo dolls.
“Jacob?!” An unknown voice broke my endless doom loop. I looked up and Jacob and I stared at a sketchy dude across the street from us who quickly ran over and grabbed Jacob by his gold-trimmed collar. “Where the fuck have you been man?! I’ve been trying to call you for months!” He shouted at Jacob who just stared at him with his permanent smile and tilted his head in confusion.
“Leave him alone, we’re trying to be somewhere asshole,” I told the guy, grabbing Jacob by the arm and starting to tug on it. The guy looked at me like I was literal shit on his shoe and stared back at Jacob.
“Who the fuck is she? More importantly, why the fuck are you dressed like this? It isn’t Halloween you freak,” he shouted at Jacob. He continued on about how he hadn’t made a single delivery in months and that some scary people were looking for him. Jacob continued to stare blankly at this guy before turning to me and taking his hat off.
“Hey, asshole! Don’t ignore me!” he shouted at Jacob as he placed the hat on me. I stared at him in confusion before he lifted his hands to cover his button eyes. He then lowered his hands and pointed at me. It took me a few seconds to figure out he wanted me to cover my eyes. So I hesitated for a moment before lifting my hands and covering my eyes.
As I covered my eyes I heard the guy let out a choked scream before a sickening crunch and tearing, overpowered the sounds of his muted screams. I shut my eyes as tightly as I could and suddenly wondered something. My glass eyes didn’t have an eyelid. So how exactly was it shut right at that moment? Did it turn off on command? I didn’t have long to wonder at the logistics as I felt Jacob’s hat being taken off of me.
I lowered my hands and was met by Jacob’s usual smiling face. And not a single stain on his uniform at all. I looked at him and then around us in confusion. There wasn’t a single sight of the asshole. Not a body part, not a drop of blood not even a scrap of clothing. Absolutely nothing. I knew better than to inquire about what had happened so I simply continued our walk towards the voodoo store.
“Mace! It’s been so long! How’s the eye treating you?” Creole asked me, giddy with excitement upon seeing me. I was instantly reminded how much I hated him. His stupid smile and his constant giddiness. It irked and annoyed me.
“It’s fine, sir,” I told him as dryly as I could. As usual that didn’t register at all to him and he simply nodded and looked over at Jacob.
“I see you two came upon some trouble. But Jacob handled it, so no harm done!” Creole said with a smile and walked over to the register. I followed after him and watched as he picked up the template doll from the register and started tossing it up and down in the air.
“What’s the problem this time?” I asked him, stuffing my hands into my jacket pocket. He stared at me for a moment with that toothy yellow grin for a few moments before letting some giggles rise up from his throat. I could already tell that this was going to suck.
“Seems, that while I was away. A rat got into some of my potions. Made quite the mess of the shop, you should’ve seen it! Now that lil ol’ rat has run off and made a nest in the high school. I’m gonna need you to deal with it for me.” He smiled as he caught the template doll in midair and gave it a hard squeeze in between his gloved fingers.
“No,” I told him. That got his attention. He raised a brow at me and tossed the doll onto the register table. “I can’t,” I said as I felt my heart beating out of control. Since I was a little girl I had an absolute phobia of rats. Everything about them disgusted me and freaked me out. And now I had to go and kill some probably giant monster rat.
“Oh Mace, we both know you ain’t in a position of refusing me.” Creole extended his hand out to me and the contract that I signed with him. He was right, I had no right to refuse him. But at the same time, I’d rather have him kill me than have to face a giant rat. Not to mention if it had gotten into his potions, there was no telling what that thing had turned into.
“Can’t you have the cops handle it?” I asked, still trying to find a way out of it. Creole slammed his fist down on the hard wooden table and I swear it felt like the entire shop would come crumbling down in top of us.
“You’ll be doing it. Understand? I don’t want to have to visit your parents any sooner than I have to, Macedonia.” He told me in a low and gravely voice. His yellow teeth sharpened into fangs and I quickly looked down at the floor and finally nodded after a few moments of trying to think of a way out of it.
“Yes sir…” I told him submissively.
“Splendid! Jacob will be coming with you, naturally. You two seem to make a good team.” His mood shifted instantly once I became cooperative. His usual bubbly and happy personality returned. I simply nodded and looked over at Jacob. He kept up his permanent smile and gave me a little wave. I returned it with a half-hearted smile of my own.
“Well off with the two of you then, the sooner you deal with that rat the sooner you can go home again,” Creole said with a smile as he dismissively waved the two of us away and without giving me any other way of protecting myself from whatever monster rat he’d accidentally created. I sighed as I followed after Jacob as he fished out the magic skeleton key and inserted it into the voodoo shop’s door.
I watched as the door contorted and warped into one of the high school’s main doors. I grabbed the metal handle before Jacob could and pushed it open. Being inside the darkened school was like having one of those nightmares where you’re back in school again, or when you come to school after hours and the entire building is eerily quiet.
“Let’s just get this over with,” I mumbled to Jacob as we started making our way towards the cafeteria. If a giant rat was going to be anywhere, it’d probably be there. We passed several photos of past classes and clubs and I came to a stop at the photo I had managed to get into. I’d snuck into cheer practice with Jess who had been a cheerleader and had gotten my picture taken with the whole squad. It brought me back to simpler times and was a cruel reminder of what had happened to my friends.
I looked over at Jacob and noticed that his button eyes were trained squarely on a photo. I walked over to him and noticed he was looking at a picture of the video game club. And staring straight at me with a happy and toothy grin was the old Jacob. Before dropping out and becoming a drug dealer, before becoming an undead bellhop. Jacob kept staring at the photo for a few more seconds before turning to look at me. There was no indication on his permanently closed and stitched smile that he felt any different but something felt off about him.
As I was about to ask him what the matter was, but a loud crash and rattling came from the direction of the cafeteria. I instantly shoved my face into Jacob’s chest in absolute terror. He wrapped his arms around me and gave me a hard squeeze. I don’t know what it is about Jacob that gives me such a calming response whenever I’m near him. Whatever it is, it was powerful enough to give me my strength back as I quickly dug into my pockets and pulled out the can of pepper spray and my pocket knife.
“Okay…I can do this…right?” I looked back at Jacob for confirmation. He gave me two thumbs up and we continued on course toward the cafeteria. Finding the doors locked I quickly handed my items to Jacob and got on my knees to begin picking the lock. It was second nature to me at this point, there had been plenty of times during high school where I had broken into the cafeteria to steal some food or a snack. In just a few swift flicks of the pins and tumblers the door swung open.
Jacob went first before motioning for me to follow after him. It certainly seemed like the rat had been here. Judging by the simple fact that the tables and benches were strewn and thrown in every possible direction. In the direction of the kitchen, the whole metal screen separating the kitchen from the cafeteria was broken and bent in various directions. I was suddenly realizing that I was probably going to be fighting a bear-sized rat with only a knife and some pepper spray.
“I don’t hear it,” I whispered to Jacob as the two of us began approaching the kitchen. We poked our heads into the utter devastation that had happened to the kitchen. Appliances were ripped from the wall, the freezer door had been ripped from its hinges, and the remains of dozens of frozen lunches were strewn about in every possible direction.
I picked up a frozen round pizza and said a silent prayer for the only decent thing the school ever gave to me. Despite all the destruction, however, there was no sign of the rat. I suddenly became afraid that the thing could turn invisible. It was then that I noticed that Jacob was staring up at the ceiling. I quickly dropped the pizza and followed his gaze upward, terrified that the rat was hanging from the ceiling like the mirror version of me had done. But instead, I was greeted by a giant gaping hole in the ceiling.
“Well, it isn’t here. Where the hell else could it be?” I asked Jacob who looked back at me and shrugged. I groaned and started looking around at the floor trying to think of where it could be. I stared too long at the floor though as my new glass eye just popped out of my head and fell to the floor.
“Oh fuck off,” I hissed in anger as I quickly dropped to my knees and began scrambling after it. I managed to catch it just before it rolled under the stove and cleaned it as best as I could before inserting it back into my skull. As I was letting the magic item return vision to my left side I stared at the stove for a moment before a thought crossed my mind.
“What about the home econ room? They have a cooking class there.” I quickly stood up and Jacob quickly nodded. The only problem was that the home econ room was on the other side of the school from where we were. Plenty of chances for the rat to ambush us. So as we started walking down the halls towards the home econ room I made sure to hold on to Jacob’s hand. Our high school isn’t even that big and yet the walk from the cafeteria felt like it took sixty years, mostly because every single noise caused me to stop and wait to see what was going to pop out and attack me.
By the time we entered the area where the home econ room was, I was able to hear something rummaging around and destroying things in the classroom. It seemed that my hunch had paid off. The only problem was that I was too scared to move even a muscle. I looked back at Jacob and he gave me a thumbs up. I squeezed his hand tightly and nodded back at him, letting go of his hand and fishing my can of pepper spray out of my jacket pocket.
I glanced into the classroom through the window. Besides the absolute devastation of the classroom, I watched in horror as a giant rat’s tail was dragged along the floor like some enormous worm. I quickly shook my head and turned to Jacob.
“I can’t do it,” I whimpered at him, feeling the onset of a panic attack incoming. Jacob rubbed my arms and waited for me to slightly calm down. I did my best to get a hold of myself and again peeked into the window of the destroyed kitchen room. I got a good look at the giant rat as it broke into one of the stoves. Most of its fur had fallen off in giant patches, and giant spikes were piercing out of its back. As it turned its head to toss the stove away from the wall I could see that one of its eyes was missing. I breathed a sigh of relief, it was blind in that eye just like I was.
I took a deep breath and carefully tried to open the door, but the handle only jiggled a little, it was locked. That slight movement of the door triggered the rat, as it quickly whipped its head towards the door. My eye met its eyes, as it still had its right eye along with a giant cluster of eyes above and below it.
“Shit,” I mumbled as it let out a loud screech and proceeded to charge towards the door. I felt Jacob quickly grab me and shove me away just as the giant rat busted down the door on top of him. I landed on the floor on my ass and watched as Jacob struggled to keep the rat from bringing its full weight on top of him and squishing him into a puddle.
“Hey, shithead!” I screamed at the rat getting its attention. I aimed my pepper spray at it and pressed down, spraying it in its giant cluster of eyes. It let out a pained shriek and fell over as it tried in vain to get the stinging chemical spray out of its eyes. I quickly dropped the empty can and winced as the stinging began to form in my good eye. One good thing about having a magic glass eyeball is that it isn’t affected by pepper spray, so I at least had one advantage over the rat.
At least I thought I did, as a deep rumbling noise came from deep inside the rat, I took a step back as I held my knife out in front of me as if it was some kind of sword or spear. I watched in disgust as a new cluster of eyes spawned from the empty eye socket, and before I could process that, the rat pounced on me and pinned me to the floor. I thrashed and kicked trying to get it off of me, and even began stabbing it in the neck. It screamed and began rumbling again as long slender tentacles began to spawn from its back and began thrashing around like whips.
“Oh, you gotta be fucking kidding!” I screamed as I began stabbing it in the face and the eyes, any spot that could get it off of me, doing my best to avoid its mouth which was constantly snapping and gnashing at me. One of my stabs ended up landing underneath the rat’s snout and I was too careless. The knife became stuck inside him and I tried to use my left hand to give me more leverage to pull it out. In doing so I got too close to its mouth and it clamped down on my hand.
I screamed my fucking lungs out, and on instinct yanked my hands out of its mouth. And watched as my pinky, ring finger, and half of my middle finger remained in the rat's mouth. I let go of the knife and clutched my bloody hand with my other. The rat eagerly chewed on my fingers and was about to come back for more when Jacob slammed a metal desk chair against its head. It stumbled and looked over at him, just in time for Jacob to bring it down on the rat's head. It screeched and quickly began scurrying away. Instead of chasing after it, Jacob quickly dropped to his knees and began taking care of me.
“W-we gotta get outta here, before it comes back,” I whimpered, staring as a fountain of blood came pouring out of my damaged hand. Jacob quickly ripped off his sleeve and made a tourniquet and a bandage for me out of it. I couldn’t really stain it since it was the same color as my blood. Jacob quickly picked me up bridal style and ran towards the stairwell entrance just as I heard the rat coming back for another attack.
We entered the stairwell and Jacob quickly rushed us upstairs just as the rat crashed through the door. We made it upstairs and found ourselves in the science wing of the school. Jacob quickly ducked us into a classroom that happened to be open and quickly closed and locked the door, pushing a chair up against the door as well. We both ducked down as we heard the rat running past us on a wild goose chase to find us.
I whimpered and winced at the pain stinging from my hand. It was then that a terrifying thought entered my mind. I wouldn’t be able to pick locks with a hand like this. At least until I could get used to only having two and a half fingers. Would Creole get bored of me if I couldn’t pick locks anymore? I looked around the classroom and suddenly was struck with a familiar feeling. Like I’d been here before. I looked over toward the teacher’s desk and was flushed with memories of the only science class I’d ever enjoyed and passed with a grade higher than a C. Mr. Picot’s chemistry class.
“Jacob, I have an idea.” I winced as I stood up and quickly whispered to my smiling savior. He quickly came over and got on his knees as I wobbly sat up on mine. “In that cabinet,” I pointed towards a big metal cabinet. “Mr. Picot keeps some dry ice in a thermal cooler. We can make dry ice bombs to fight that thing.” I told him, Jacob quickly nodded as he agreed to my plan. He helped me stand up on my feet and the two of us walked over to the cabinet. I dug into my pocket and pulled out the tools.
Jacob helped me as he held the left hook pick steady for me as I used my good hand to fiddle around. I was lucky that Mr. Picot used a pretty cheap lock for the cabinet. After only two failed attempts we got the locker opened. Jacob quickly opened the cooler and pulled out the small block of dry ice from its container. I went under Mr. Picot’s desk and quickly grabbed a couple of mini water bottles that he always had on hand in case someone needed some water during a test.
Jacob carefully drained each bottle so only a little bit of water was left and cut the dry ice into little chunks, wrapping them up in a paper towel and adding them to the water bottle. I was impressed at how skillfully he was doing this. I’d always imagined Jacob as the typical school-hating wanna-be gangster. But here he was proving that he knew what he was doing. The water would stop an immediate release of the CO2 into the bottle and give us time to chuck it at the rat.
Our best bet was going to be getting it to swallow one, so with our arsenal of six bombs made and carefully being carried by Jacob in a lost and found backpack we’d found in the classroom, we exited the classroom and started making as much noise as possible. Banging our hands against the lockers and me screaming as loudly as I could. Soon enough we heard the loud scurrying running towards us again.
It had changed again, with its mouth having split open like a flower full of teeth and bleeding gums. If I didn’t walk away from this completely traumatized of rats I was going to be very surprised. Jacob reached into the back and pulled out a bomb, giving it a good shake before tossing it. Unfortunately for us, it blew up midair and sent a loud bang throughout the school. That didn’t seem to bother the rat as it kept charging towards us. I quickly took a bottle from Jacob and started rushing towards the rat.
It tackled me to the ground and screamed at me with its giant gaping mouth. I shook the bottle as well as I could and stuffed it into its mouth, acting quicker on this occasion to pull my hand back out. It swallowed the bomb and I winced in anticipation. As if on cue the bomb exploded in the rat’s throat and nearly decapitated it. It staggered over me for a few moments, as if trying to figure out why it had lost function of its whole body before it tumbled to the floor and let out a long death gurgle.
“Thank god,” I sighed as I crawled out from under it. Jacob was carefully opening the bottles to relieve their pressure. It turned out we only needed one after all. I walked over to him and shoved my face into his chest, letting a wave of emotions come over me as I began to cry uncontrollably into him. Everything bubbled to the surface at once, my fear of rats, my situation, my hopelessness, everything all came to the surface at once. I stood there crying into Jacob’s chest for a good five minutes before I finally got some bit of composure back.
The two of us made our way back down to the first floor and toward the main entrance. As we were about to leave I looked back to see Jacob staring at his old picture again. I wondered what he could be thinking about, but I figured it was better not to dwell on that, so I simply opened the door and stepped back into Creole’s shop.
“Mace! Goodness girl, what happened to ya?” Creole asked in shock which I couldn’t tell if it was genuine or fake. He walked over to me and quickly grabbed my hand, removing Jacob’s makeshift bandage to get a good look at it. “Oh dear me, quite the nasty bite it gave you, huh?” He asked me, that stupid smile replaced with a look of concern on his face.
“Can you fix me, sir?” I asked him as he looked at the hand and reached into his pocket. He wordlessly doused my hand in some potion and I half expected my lost fingers to start blooming like some flower or something. But instead, the bleeding ceased completely.
“There we are. That should deal with any infection as well, can’t have my new toy breaking so soon after I bought it,” he said with that stupid smile returning to his face. I stared back at him and felt my anger boiling over. I was his toy. No better than a frisbee he could throw around. And easily replaceable if he broke me too badly.
“What about my fingers?” I asked him, wanting to know if he could do anything with them. He stared at them for a moment before letting go of my hand and shrugging.
“If I had them I could sew them back on. Unfortunately, we don’t have them do we?” he said with a smile that quickly grew sinister as I was sure some other horrible idea had crossed his mind. “I could always chop it off and give you a new hand,” he said with a sinister snicker. I quickly held onto my hand and backed away from him.
“No thank you. I’ll manage with this.” I told him as I turned to leave, surprised to see that Jacob had replaced his damaged uniform in the time I had been talking to Creole.
“Oh, Mace my darling? You still can pick locks, can’t you? I would hate for your injuries to end that hobby for you,” Creole asked me as I kept my back to him. I looked down at my hand and bent my remaining fingers. It was doable, it would just take me a long time to get used to.
“Yes, sir,” I told him, opening the front door and listening to the sad bell jingle its tone as I left the shop. I was sure that he was just looking for any reason to break me further and get rid of me. Or he would finally get bored of me and get rid of me that way.
Either way, I was resolved with one simple goal. Free myself from King Creole by any means necessary.

Hey graphic design community. I want to tell my story and ask for suggestions. I was graduated BA in graphic design 4 years ago, I really loved to study, it was interesting and meaningful to do various projects, I thought that I found my path.. After I was freelancing and liked it, but then started working in company and later in agencies as a graphic designer. In these years I was fired from three agencies because of layoffs or didn’t meet agencies expectations (didn’t meet attention to details or working too slowly) And I think the main reason of that, that I’m actually hated repetitive work, not much creativity because of template work, lack of people interaction which made me depressed. I realized from year first that this work not suitable for me and lack of meaning to make same visuals and layouts. I’m kind and curious person which loves to communicate, discuss, I’m also interested in project management or marketing strategies and thinking to pivot in these fields, but now I’m too scared and think nobody hires without experience. I’m also interseted working with children, even thinking to pivot to kindergarden teacher later in life. Maybe you have similiar experiene? How you pivoted from graphic desing to another field and what actions did you take? I would love to hear any suggestions and maybe motivation!

I am a rising high school senior, and I am preparing to ask my teachers and mentors for a letter of reccomendation. I am planning to major in architecture in college. I am preparing to ask 4 people for letters of reccomendation: 2 mentors I have worked with who are professionals in my chosen field/major; my advisor, who is also a tech-ed teacher, for a club in which I hold state level leadership as well as national award recognition; and my AP Calculus teacher. Most of the brag sheet templates I see are for teachers, not mentors or advisors, and most sites and social media accounts I see reccomend that students ask their science or math teachers for letters of recommendation if they are going into a STEM field. However, I feel that my professional mentors and my club advisor could give a much stronger letter compared to my math teacher- they know me much better as a person and a creative thinker. Some schools will only accept 2 letters of reccomendation, so I now pose the question: which letters should I submit?

Preseason, we did not get enough signups and therefore I had to make bots. You’ll notice their stats only add up to or less than 10 to prevent any rigging issues if a bot wins. Relationships were NOT randomized (altho i think the simulator changes them ?? not sure). For sure, next season will be randomized relationships, unless you dont want that. Tell me below!

SIMULATOR CODE + LINK: P1WhlFeI, https://brantsteele.com/bigbrothetemplate/r.php?c=P1WhlFeI

Winner: Eddie Ramos
Runner-Up: Barbara Rose
First Boot: Lizzie Carpenter
America’s Favorite Houseguest: Violet
Production’s Favorite Houseguests: Kieran, Barbara, Eddie, Violet, Nick
Returning Chances (in an allstars or second chances season) : Violet , Kieran , Barbara , Sofia, Lizzie, Nick, Denise

CASTLIST

Barbara Rose Age: 24 Occupation: Hair Stylist Gender: Female u/Sxvorii
Chris Holland Age: 37 Occupation: Bartender Gender: Male no user
Denise Allen Age: 25 Occupation: Coder Gender: Female no user
Eddie Ramos Age: 55 Occupation: Paleontologist Gender: Male u/ClearSkid17280
Juan Diaz Jr. Age: 31 Occupation: Photographer Gender: Male no user
Kieran Ross Age: 25 Occupation: Comedian Gender: Male u/Popular-Scientist648
Lizzie Carpenter Age: 24 Occupation: Makeup Artist Gender: Female u/ashssavior (lizzie was robbed sm)
Martha Garcia Age: 27 Occupation: Nurse Gender: Female no user
Matthew “Matt” Sanders Age: 30 Occupation: Highschool Teacher Gender: Male u/Technical_Mushroom12
Nicholas “Nick” Cadogan Age: 22 Occupation: Unemployed Gender: Male no user
Sofia Torres Age: 24 Occupation: Professional Flamengo Dancer Gender: Female u/NahuelFire39
Violet Armani Age: 23 Occupation: Character Designer Gender: Female u/ashssavior
ALL Promotional Content will be sent below to make this post more accessible to edit. This includes: the winner’s photo, the cast’s promos, season logo, and placements.

SEASON SUMMARY

The season begins with a highnote as Barbara makes many friends, notably Lizzie, Violet, and Denise, in alliances with her. Chris & Juan bond right off the bat. Martha wins HoH and immediately, Barbara’s close friends Lizzie and Denise are nommed. Lizzie is than sent packing. Sofia then wins the next one and nominates Denise & Chris. Denise is replaced with Nick. Drama happens week 2, as Nick and Violet fight: Martha flipping the mattress of Nick, and Sofia having a public meltdown. Shockingly, Chris is sent packing nearly unanimous. Martha wins once more, putting Denise & Nick up. Matt gossips about Sofia while Denise advances socially. Nick is sent packing from a 6-1 (almost) unanimous vote. Sofia nominates Matt and Denise. Eddie and Barbara open up to eachother, and Kieran accidentally breaks one of Juan’s items. Matt was sent home 5-1. Juan nominates Sofia and Violet, after Denise warmed up the seats for them by her pawning. With Juan’s back up against the wall, he nominates Kieran after the PoV is used on Sofia. In a difficult vote, Violet is evicted. Sofia wins HoH and nominates Denise and Kieran: the target is likely Kieran. Unfortunately for him, he and Barbara get into a heated fight. In a notable vote, he is evicted unanimously. Eddie wins and goes to target the comp beasts who he believes are running the house: Martha and Sofia. In a shocking turn of events, Sofia is blindsided and evicted. Barbara wins HoH, nomming Martha & Juan. After Eddie saves Juan, she replaces him with her only ally, Denise. Martha is evicted. Denise wins the HoH as the remainder of the houseguests make a jury pact to not vote petty. Denise blindsides Barbara by putting her up next to Eddie— citing an excuse of a backdoor. Denise has a mental breakdown infront of everyone, but manages to guilttrip Eddie into voting his number one ally out. Barbara, Denise, and Eddie remain. Denise has no power in the final HoH & is sent packing. In a unanimous, remarkable, robbery of a vote, and SHOCKING vote… Eddie wins 6-1. Violet wins AFP (as she should queen)
TLDR? See it all for yourself in the simulator link!

PRODUCTIONS THOUGHTS

For a first season, I loved every bit of making and producing it. It was fun to make and altho the season summary took forever, I think its worth it. A second season is definitely on the table. I do however think these placements could be better, Lizzie Matt Violet Kieran and Sofia deserved to go after the bots all went but I think the bots having some tiny personality is ok to say the least.
I’m your host, Asdf Ghjkl, and this was Big Brother 1: Gamble of a Lifetime! Tune in next time! (Alumni can signup for multiple seasons: just as different characters).

What I am wondering is if it is like this for all BYU students, or is grading/professor communication basically done like this for Pathway students only as a way to basically save expenses and manpower since this is a lower-cost program.
I mean my religious courses have been astoundingly bizarre, basically where the teacher would have some little blurb about what they learned, and then intermixed into this email would be a "And I liked how you said this," but it's basically clearly a template email where it was inserted. It feels very unnatural and bizarre in how it is structured and it's like they are trying to give an illusion it's personable, but it's clearly anything from that and often just makes it feel like no one actually read what I wrote. I don't even care about the feedback. I'd be totally happy just to get the grade over the bizarre fake responses that seem like they are trying to deceive me into believing they are personable and real responses. Why even bother doing that? Especially in spiritual things it's even more weird.
Even both of the software development courses I am in, the responses from the professors are basically completely fake generated. For example, there is no penalty for being late on assignments. I have a 4.0 GPA across all my classes, so it's not a bad student thing. But if I turn in an assignment at 1am that was due at midnight the day before, zero penalty. But, the grade calculator will say, now give you a 0/50 placeholder on the assignment until it's graded usually within a week or so. If that ever happens I will often get some weird boiler-plate email from the professor that talks about how even though I am probably unhappy with my current grade, they noticed the good work I have been doing, and that if I just work harder on the next week's assignment I can boost my grade. Lol wut? Clearly the automatic response logic isn't doing a check to see if an assignment has just been submitted but not yet graded.
Anyway, it's not really a big deal, I am just really curious if this is a phenomenon of the BYU Pathway program or this is BYU in general. When I attended the University of AZ and a community college before I transferred credits to BYU, I never experienced anything like this so it just feels weird.

Hi everyone, totally new here as I've never done anything like this before.
I have a pretty solid idea for a web-based learning game which would be pretty similar in style and accessibility to the JeopardyLabs site (I have no affiliation with them but I've used the game many times and it's wonderful). It's a very different game in its play and functionality but the general idea of its simplicity aligns with JeopardyLabs.
It's a game I've been using and developing as an ESL teacher for the last 6 years. It's a very simple game and although I've used it only for ESL education, the game template itself is plain enough that it could easily be used for just about any subject. I've taught thousands of students in my time and they have pretty unanimously loved it, from primary to high school age. Many of my colleagues and friends have begun using it in that time too. So that gave me the idea that it might be something worth pursuing as a startup. I've also searched around and didn't find any other web-based games like this.
Similar to JeopardyLabs, I want it to be mainly free and for anyone to be able to create a new game which would automatically be put into a database which users can then search through for games created by others. Eventually I want to add a premium membership feature which would allow users to pay a one-off fee in order to make an account and have access to more game-customisation features.
Problem is, I have absolutely no experience with either front or back-end development. I'm currently getting some quotes from full-stack developers on Fiverr to build a prototype site. I also have no experience in creating a website, company, copyright or anything else regarding startups.
I want to ask if you guys have any advice about this. The idea of the game is pretty complete and solid but I need to know what other things I need to consider.
Any advice would be hugely appreciated and thanks for taking the time to read my post.

I am curious to hear from teachers how they structure practice for beginner or earl-intermediate students. Is it all about specific time spent on a song, playing a song so many times? What kind of warmups do you have them do on a weekly basis? I am also curious if you use a template for marking down assignments or just a standard composition notebook.
Thanks!

Registration For An In-Depth Online Dyeing and Color Theory Course, Color Alchemy Masterclass Ends Next Friday 6/7/24!
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Pictured are the results from a Color Alchemy Masterclass participant and the inspiration photo they used to create their dyed yarn
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• Learn More & Register: Visit alannawilcox.com or send me a DM with any questions

Recently at work (1.5 years) I've been becoming disengaged. My main job is to follow the news and send relevant stories to the our email list
We also summarize government news releases and create draft templates for offices to use in responding to constituents.
The issue is that the department was database management and monitoring the news when I started before we switched over to communications (form letters and press release summarys).
I'm learning but am not enjoying these new tasks and not picking up key accepts of these new roles quickly. My manager has been patient and a great teacher but I'm realizing there isn't much room for growth.
Since we are on a rotating shift system everyone in my department is on a different lunch system. We can talk whole working but would be nice to get lunch with co workers while not having work hang over our heads so to speak. We haven't had an office lunch for awhile either.
This has made me feel disengaged and it feels like it's hard to make a connection with people, I'm going to invite some coworkers from other department's to lunch tomorrow and see how that goes/how's it received
I have a weird ennui where I feel like things are going well but am bored with it all. The great co workers and office atmosphere keep me here though. But I feel disengaged since it's very repetitive
I just feel stuck is the best way to put it and feel like I can stay here and coast but not sure what I want anymore and have no career plan. I'm happy and can stay here for awhile.. overall just feeling lost and looking for advice
I have hobbies such as reading, walking and traveling. Might plan a trip soon to look forward to something

These are generalizations, based off of teaching in a tough school. I was non-renewed, so I didn't do well enough, but here's what I learned in my first year teaching. I started in October, so it was a bit less than a full year, but close enough. I'll provide a rationale for each generalization:

1. Seating charts are mandatory

• Rationale: Without seating charts, students sit with their friends, which causes way too much noise and distraction. Students love their friends far more than the subject, and having friends together causes 50-75% of the kids to lose focus

1. Perfect lessons are not mandatory, but consistent lessons can be useful

• Rationale: Beautifully designed lessons, using 5-6 pages of a lesson plan template, are an exhausting feat to scale up for all 200 days, and may just be ignored by the kids anyway. I tried doing integrated lessons (art + computer science + game design) and the kids just ignored me, and did their own thing. I was so burnt out from lesson planning that I couldn't even bother to regulate their behavior, and keep them on task

Having the same, consistent lesson, with a few new features added every so often, has allowed me to pull back from working 10-12 hour days, which burnt me out in the middle of the year. I take a few pre-built computer science modules from a website, put them on the projector, and have the kids type out and run them. It's boring, but it allows me to focus on managing crazy, out of control behavior, questions, and actually teaching a few concepts to the whole class. Quieting the class down is a slow process, but I can do it with 5-10 repeated requests to be quiet.

1. This last one I'm still thinking about, but here's what I've got: Students will create their own chaotic fun if you do not micromanage them. Even if you do micromanage them, they will get up, wander around your class, bother other people, fight their friends, throw food, destroy your classroom, litter, destroy each other's things, steal each other's stuff, yell and scream, run out of the room, etc.

Therefore, it's very useful to have a discipline flowchart, and rules. This is something I didn't expect when I started teaching, but the kids go crazy unless you create and enforce rules. Not just talking, or being loud, or sneaking a phone out - I'm saying that they regularly are: Getting up, pushing each other off of chairs, lifting up desks, having a giant feast of chips in the middle of a table, trash everywhere, throwing water at each other, spraying water from a sink all over the floor, causing a giant mess and having a giant party, and then just laughing about it. It's sociopathic, and I didn't know that it would happen, especially not every day. It can and does happen multiple times a day. Some of them get mad at me if I tell them to stop.
I have about 15 rules now: No running, playfighting, throwing things, leaving the classroom, phones, being off task, watching YouTube, food, water, drinks, snacks, screaming, yelling, getting out of your seat, moving chairs. There are probably a few more.
Once those rules are created and posted around the room, and communicated 10-20 times, it's time to start texting parents. Most of my parents speak Spanish, so I need to use Google Translate to do this, but that's not the end of the world. Parents don't have emails in our system, and prefer text, is what I was told.
This also means that time outside of contract hours will consistently be spent regulating behavior - documenting misbehavior on paper, then calling parents, then updating student logs, then getting the principal involved when weeks of misbehavior are documented.
I still don't have great student behavior, which is half of the reason I was non-renewed. Many of my students still do the above things.
That's all I can think of for now, other teachers can add whatever they'd like. It would be useful to have a short list of highly upvoted recommendations for new teachers in this subreddit. The wiki has a long reading list, but new teachers are usually busy creating lessons, and having 5-10 heavily upvoted recommendations for classroom management and pedagogy (as well as how to not overwork yourself) would be incredibly useful, in my opinion.

I am going to do a training for my district next week. I want to utilize this lesson from the Canva Design School. https://www.canva.com/lesson-templates/LCJaGvQQIWcNqsiGLsJl4QF/
Since it is a group of teachers, can I assign it to them as though they are students? And if I do that, will it mess up their account in any way? Basically, what is the BEST way to share this lesson with all of the resources so they can act as students going through it?

Just how many of you have thought of creating online courses to start earning a side earning and then gave up finding it difficult to research and create an engaging course? I get it not all of us are subject experts or tech-savvy educators.
But AI CourseCentric is changing the game, making creating and selling courses easier than ever.
Before, getting into online courses needed you to know a lot about popular topics. But now, AI CourseCentric makes it simple. You can dive into any subject, like digital marketing or AI, without needing to be an expert.

So, how does it work? It uses artificial intelligence to make creating courses easy.

Here is a step by step guideline:

1. Pick a Template: Choose a ready-made template or make your own course from scratch.
   
2. Customize Content: There's lots of stuff like images and videos ready for you to use.
   
3. Choose Themes: Make your course look cool with different themes.
   
4. Stay Safe and Connected: Keep your content safe and link up with payment systems and email services.
   
5. Get Insights and Share: Use AI to see how well your course is doing and share it on social media.
   

And it's not just for courses! You can also make eBooks and sell them too.
So, what's the bottom line?
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Hello learnmachinelearning community,
I'm excited to share a resource that could be a game-changer for those of us working with large language models (LLMs): the Prompt Teacher. This tool is designed to help users learn the art of prompt engineering—crafting, refining, and optimizing prompts to elicit better responses from LLMs.
What is Prompt Teacher? Prompt Teacher is an interactive web app that provides an educational interface for learning and practicing prompt engineering. It offers a variety of "metaprompts" which are templates and strategies to enhance the way you interact with LLMs. These include techniques for expanding details, condensing information, incorporating feedback, and much more.
Why Use Prompt Teacher?

• Educational: It's a great way to understand how different prompt constructions influence LLM outputs.
• Accessible: Designed for both beginners and experienced practitioners (free & open-source).

Getting Started: You can try out Prompt Teacher directly via Hugging Face Spaces at this link: Prompt Teacher @ Huggingface Spaces. No setup is required to start experimenting (you just need an OpenAI or Anthropic API key)!
For those interested in deeper customization or offline use, the tool is open-source. You can clone the repo from GitHub: pwenkeprompt_teacher and follow the setup instructions provided.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and experiences with this tool!

I know I know I’m already beating myself up that my product has a typo!!! I make teacher planners and a customer reached out that on one of my months has 6 dates that are wrong. She said don’t worry about fixing it or a refund, just letting me know for future planners. I went to my templates and on ALL of my different templates those dates are wrong. I’ve sold a bunch of planners that now have this typo and don’t know what I should do. Should I reach out and refund these people or should I not say anything? Please help!! I’ve finally started doing good with my Etsy store and now have this HUGE problem.

Got told we're starting the NEA now in year 12 and I need to complete the analysis in the next 2 weeks (teacher set deadline) Im planning on making a flight tracker and need to conduct a survey but Im not sure if my survey is good (ie: are the questions actually good enough). Would appreciate some criticisms of my survey template (and if there are any aviation enthusiasts here could you also fill the form out please). Thanks in advance to anyone that can help :)
heres the form : https://forms.gle/crLavZ9uRxRpFgFS6
edit: updated the form link