Lesson plan on visiting the docter for toddlers

Hi. I’m (22F), incoming as a junior transfer student to UAH this Fall.
The UAH 24-25 academic calendar is already available, and it says that winter break will be from roughly Dec 13 (this is the week exams end) to January 8 (classes resume).
I am inquiring to any current UAH students if you can attest if the academic calendar has always been consistent or at least near to the dates it originally sets? Any last minute changes or anything like that? My reason for this is so I can properly plan traveling to visit my family for the holidays.
The only disclaimer I saw on the calendar itself was that it could changed based on surrounding K-12 school schedules, which is why I have concerns at all.
TLDR: does the UAH academic calendar stay pretty true to the dates it sets ahead of time?
Thank you all.

Planning on taking a 3day/2night, car camping road trip around the Olympic peninsula this summer. What would be the best time to go? Any recommendations on “must go” camp sites? Reservation required or non reservation. Primarily free and likely to have vacancy (Maybe asking for too much) still welcome to any and all suggestions.
Also any “must visit” locations and “must do” trail suggestions.
Thank you all for your time!

I had top surgery with Dr. Gast at UW Health in October 2022 and it's been a process of one annoyance after another since I first reached out to the clinic around Feb/March or 2021. I'll say that the results of my surgery seem technically okay, but I didn't get a single thing I asked for, despite her saying all of it would be possible during my consultations.
The first issues were after I got my letter of readiness (September 2021) and they started to run the surgery through my insurance. From then until around February/March, UW Health, myself, and my insurance (Aetna) went back and forth about whether the nipple graft would be covered by insurance. Aetna had a clear policy on which code to use to get it covered, but UW Health continuously refused to use that code and insisted it had to be a different code. In the end, I decided I wanted to just get the surgery done and agreed to pay UW Health's $3500 (cash, due upfront, no payment plan) option for out-of-pocket nipple graft.
I was doing FtNB, so I asked for slightly largefuller pecs and larger nipples/areolas both to look more androgynous and because I wanted to get my nipples re-pierced after the surgery. All of these points were reiterated at EVERY check-point including pre-surgery visits, consultations, and in the surgery prep room. The final result I have is completely flat pecs and nipples so small they barely even protrude from the skin, and UW Health is giving me the complete run around on trying to resolve. So the surgery is technically proficient, but not at all what I asked for in terms of results.
After the surgery when I started healing, I noticed my nipples and areolas seemed really small, but I know they can take time to protrude, so I waited around 9 months to set up a post-op consult to talk about revisions for the small dog ears and the small nipples. I was told this consult could be done as a video call (I don't live in Madison), so I scheduled the appointment, waited a few weeks, and had the call where Dr. Gast told me this could only be handled in person. So I had to make ANOTHER appointment, wait again, and drive out to Madison to get looked at.
During this in person appointment, Dr. Gast told me she could set up a revision surgery for the dog ears and ask a colleague about nipple fillers. She told me that if I was a candidate for the fillers, they would be free at their filler clinic.
After a few weeks, I hadn't heard anything back, so I reached out and she said the other doctor said I was a good candidate for fillers. So I try to schedule an appointment for the fillers, but now the nurses are telling me that:
1) I have to go have ANOTHER in-person consult with this other doctor (why wasn't I told this so I could have both consults back in October when I was there already??? They knew I wanted to talk about nipple filling options... No one can answer this...)
2) The consult will be separate from the procedure, so I'll also have to go back ANOTHER TIME to do that.
3) Instead of FREE as I was told both verbally and in a written message by Dr. Gast, I'm now being told the fillers will be some mystery price between $600 and several thousand dollars (which no one can tell me until after the procedure???). Remember this is ON TOP of the $3500 I paid to get nipples that are nothing like what I asked for...
I also asked before my surgery if revisions would be included and they said yes, but now that I need revisions the cost of everything is vague answers of a lot of money.
At this point I'm feeling like I should just either give up and be stuck with pecs/nipples I hate and constantly want to hide or find some other surgeon closer to home. If I have to pay for all the revisions either way, I might as well save myself all of the driving.

Hi - I'm Paul and I follow the e-commerce industry closely for my Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter. Each week I post a summary recap of the week's top stories, which I cover in depth with sources in the full edition. Let's dive in...
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STAT OF THE WEEK: Kohl's sales have shrunk by $2.3B since 2019. During that same period of time, the company lost 1.3M customers who no longer shop with the retailer.
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BigCommerce is exploring a sale after attracting takeover interest, according to sources who chose to remain anonymous due to the confidentiality of the information. The sources said that BigCommerce asked investment bank Qatalyst Partners to solicit interest from potential buyers that include private equity firms, but that the discussions are at an early stage and no deal is certain.
___
Squarespace announced that it will be going private in a $6.9B all-cash deal with private-equity firm Permira, who agreed to pay $44 per share (a roughly 30% premium). Although Squarespace never lost 90% of its share price like BigCommerce, it has experienced a tumultuous time on the market since its IPO in May 2021 — opening around $49.50 and at times trading in the low $20s. Shares rose nearly 13% to $43 in pre-market trading upon release of the news.
___
ByteDance filed a lawsuit in US federal court seeking to block the new law that would force the sale or ban of the app within the country. The lawsuit challenges the law on constitutional grounds, also citing commercial, technical, and legal hurdles, as well as opposition from Beijing. Legal experts say the legal battle will play out in the courts in coming months and likely will reach the Supreme Court.
___
OpenAI unveiled its newest model, GPT-4o, designed to turn ChatGPT into a digital personal assistant that can engage in real-time, spoken conversations and interact with users using text, screenshots, photos, documents, and charts. The new version of ChatGPT also has memory capabilities, which means it can learn from previous conversations. It will be available to both unpaid and premium customers alike. OpenAI also announced that it would be launching a desktop app with the GPT-4o capabilities, giving users another platform to interact with the technology outside of a web browser.
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Amazon launched in South Africa last week, marking its first marketplace in sub-Saharan Africa, and bringing its total number of marketplaces worldwide to 22. To launch the new marketplace, Amazon is offering free delivery on first orders and on subsequent orders above R500 (about $27), access to 3,000 pick-up points, status updates via WhatsApp to track orders, 30 day refunds, and 24/7 customer support. The marketplace was supposed to launch in the country in 2023, but got delayed due to changes in priorities within Amazon.
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In an unlikely partnership, Instacart is partnering with Uber Eats to expand into the restaurant delivery business. Instacart will add a new tab for restaurant delivery to its app in the coming weeks, the listings will be provided by Uber, and the food will be picked up and delivered by Uber Eats drivers. Customers will receive the same prices on both apps and Instacart will receive an affiliate commission on orders. It's a strange partnership though given that Instacart and Uber Eats actively compete on grocery delivery. Are they planning to merge? Uber says no.
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Apple's advertisement for its latest iPad Pro sparked criticism for showing an animation of musical instruments, paint cans, cameras, record players, and other symbols of creativity being crushed by a giant machine, with the output being the new iPad Pro, which the company says is the thinnest Apple product ever. In this context, “crushing” was supposed to symbolize “consolidating” and “compacting” — with the visuals meant to showcase how the new iPad Pro puts the power of all these tools into the hands of creators in one thin device. However online commenters criticized the ad as insensitive and as symbolizing a “destruction of the human experience.” The ad hit the web on Tuesday, and by Thursday, Apple issued a mea culpa and apologized for the campaign.
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Google is encouraging merchants to enable conversion annotations on their Google Shopping ads, which offer social proof that highlight a product's popularity. Conversion annotations like “best selling” or “3K shopped here recently” would provide visual cues about a product’s popularity or sales performance directly in the ad unit. Annotations like these are par for the course with e-commerce retailers including Amazon, Walmart, and Temu, which all employ similar tactics. They can provide valuable info for shoppers and also help with conversions. However they also open data privacy concerns, given that Google is not the actual retailer or marketplace selling the items, so a merchant would have to share this purchase history data from their e-commerce platform with Google — which technically most already do by giving access to GA4.
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Shein is attempting to join the National Retail Federation as it pursues regulatory approval to go public in the US. The company believes that NRF membership would boost its chances of receiving SEC approval. However so far, Shein has been rejected numerous times. An anonymous source familiar with the matter said someone with heavy influence at the NRF is strongly against the Shein's admittance. However board members who spoke to CNBC said that Shein's membership application hadn't come up in meetings, and that they aren't involved in deciding which companies are granted access.
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Amazon is leading the way with selling home goods, capturing 18.8% of consumer home furnishings spending, compared to Walmart's 7.3% market share. Notably, Amazon’s gains in the furniture category come in spite of the company’s decision to phase out two of its three furniture brands last year.
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Stanley, which is projected to do $750M in sales this year, up from $73M in 2019, after seeing its water bottles become a status symbol thanks to TikTok, is now expanding into trendier accessories. The company is launching a line of bags called the All-Day Collection which include a mini cooler, backpack cooler, and Quencher Carry-All, designed for someone to sling their Stanley over their hip.
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Jack Dorsey left the Bluesky board and deleted his account on the service he helped kickstart, claiming that Bluesky was “literally repeating all the mistakes” he made while running Twitter. Dorsey says he never intended Bluesky to be an independent company, but rather, an open source protocol that Twitter was supposed to be the first client of. He also confirmed that he is financially backing Nostr, another decentralized Twitter-like service popular among crypto enthusiasts and run by an anonymous founder.
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Amazon is deploying 50 electric trucks in California, which it claims is the largest EV fleet in the country, as part of its mission to eliminate pollution from its global operations. The trucks will be integrated into first-mile operations, moving goods from container ships at the ports to fulfillment centers, as well as middle-mile operations, transporting packages from fulfillment centers to delivery centers.
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Wix launched a new tool called AI Portfolio Creator, which allows a user to upload and organize large-scale image collections, select the type of portfolio they want, and then have the AI tool sort and generate a portfolio with clustered images, recommended titles and descriptions, and personalized layout options.
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Amazon is now requiring all dietary supplements to be verified by a third-party testing, inspection, and certification organization — which is something that not even the FDA requires. Amazon is the largest supplement retailer in the US ahead of Walmart and Target, and its new requirements are expected to put more pressure on the industry, which is being scrutinized more than ever.
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Alibaba is revamping its flagship retail website Taobao for the first time in seven years with a focus on providing a smoother search and buying process. The website overhaul comes ahead of the 618 sales event, China's second-largest annual shopping event. A few weeks ago I reported that Eddie Wu, the CEO of Alibaba Group, would now be directly overseeing its domestic e-commerce arm which includes Taobao and Tmall Group, and it sounds like he's hitting the ground running with his new responsibilities.
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Amazon is hosting its first-ever Amazon Book Sale, a new shopping event starting on May 15th that offers up to 50% off print best sellers and up to 80% off Kindle Books. The six day shopping event will exclusively run in the US, and Prime-membership is not required to take advantage of the deals.
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FTX reported that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded. The company owes about $11.2B to its customers and estimates that it has between $14.5B and $16.3B to distribute to them. The caveat is that customers will receive the USD value of their holdings at the time of the exchange collapse, and not the actual crypto holdings themselves, which means that they'll miss out on all gains during the past two years during which BTC went from around $16k to now over $60k. Better than nothing though, that's for sure.
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800,000 consumers in Europe and the US were duped into sharing card details and other sensitive personal data with a network of fake online designer shops operated from China, which comprised one of the largest scams of its kind with 76,000 fake websites created. The scammers used expired domains to host its fake shops in order to help avoid detection by websites or brand owners, and more than 1M orders were processed in the past three years alone.
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Beyond Inc, which owns Bed Bath & Beyond, Overstock, and Zulily, reported that its Q1 net loss swelled to $72M from $10M a year ago, while its operating loss widened to $58M from $8M. The company's active customers grew to 6M, up 26% from nearly 5M a year ago, however, its average order value dropped to $173 from $220 a year earlier.
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TikTok will begin automatically labeling AI generated content when it is uploaded from certain platforms like DALL.E 3, Adobe Firefly, Photoshop, and Microsoft Copilot. TikTok will also start attaching Content Credentials to content, which will remain on the media when downloaded, allowing other platforms to read the metadata.
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eBay is testing an Add To Cart button in search results that opens a Quick View window, allowing buyers to skip the listing page. Technically the button should probably not be labeled “Add To Cart” since it doesn't perform that action, but rather, displays a quick view window with three buttons: Buy It Now, Add To Cart, View All Details. Sellers are worried that buyers will miss crucial details in the product description that may lead to increased returns and negative feedback.
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Amazon is planning to launch its fleet of drones in Tolleson, Arizona, but the city's extreme temperature is hampering its efforts. Drones can't operate in temperatures exceeding 104 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that Tolleson crosses for a full three months of the year.
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A US district judge dismissed X's lawsuit against Bright Data, a data-scraping company accused of improperly accessing X system and violating X terms and state laws when scraping and selling data. The judge basically said that if X owned the data, it could perhaps argue that it has exclusive rights to control it, but then X wouldn't be able to enjoy the safe harbor of Section 230, which allows the platform to avoid liability for third-party content. Can't have it both ways!
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Nintendo is discontinuing its X integration for the switch on June 10th, which means users will no longer be able to post screenshots or videos to the platform from their device. The drop in support also affects games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which had game-specific options to send out tweets. Microsoft Xbox dropped support for X in April 2023 and Sony Playstation dropped the service in October 2023 due to the increase in X's API access fees.
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Amazon claimed that its recordable incident rate — a metric that comprises all injuries requiring “more than basic first-aid treatment” — at its US warehouses has improved by 24% since 2019. However the National Employment Law Project challenged Amazon's injury data in a report last week, claiming that Amazon's overall injury rate in 2023 was 71% higher than that of other employers in the sector at 6.5 cases per 100 workers.
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Amazon Ads announced three new advertising formats for streaming TV including shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads, and interactive trivia ads. Amazon did not say when the new ad types would officially launch, but noted that it will formally present them at a presentation on May 14th.
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Meta is rolling out an expanded set of generative AI ad tools that can create full image variations with text overlays, expand images to fit across different aspect ratios, and generate alternate versions of headlines and other ad text. The features will become available globally to advertisers by the end of the year.
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Square introduced a tool called Square Kiosk to allow self-service ordering at fast food restaurants. The device is a combined software, hardware, and payment solution that allows customers to select exactly what they want with customization options, upgrades, and add-ons.
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The European Parliament announced new measures to make packaging more sustainable and reduce packaging waste in the EU, including reduction targets of 15% by 2040 — which sounds far away but is only 16 years away?! As part of the new rules, the EU will set maximum empty space ratios for e-commerce transportation, ban certain single-use plastic packaging types, and beverage distributors and take-away food will have to offer consumers the option of bringing their own container.
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Indians who pre-ordered Teslas in 2016 are giving up and seeking refunds of their deposits after Elon Musk canceled another visit to the country last month. Disillusioned Tesla enthusiasts in India say they will now buy a car from the company only if they see it in a showroom, or they'll buy a different electrical vehicle from a company that actually exists in the country.
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Target is limiting its Pride Month collection to select stores this year instead of rolling out the merchandise nationwide like it typically has for the past decade, due to backlash the retailer experienced last year. Last May customers in certain stores knocked down LGBTQ+ merchandise displays, angrily approached store employees, and posted threatening videos on social media from inside the stores.
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E-commerce spending from Jan 1 to April 30, 2024 rose 7% YoY to $331.6B, according to Adobe Analytics. One trend Adobe identified during the period is a shift of online spending to purchasing the cheapest goods across personal care, electronics, apparel, home & garden, furniture, and grocery.
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Plus 7 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest, including Shopify's acquisition of Peel, a tool that integrates with a merchant's tech stack including Klaviyo and Recharge and helps them analyze their sales data to improve customer retention.
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I hope you found this recap helpful. See you next week!
PAUL Editor of Shopifreaks E-Commerce Newsletter
PS: If I missed any big news this week, please share in the comments.

I am a 29(F) and my son's father is 32-33(M), I went to high school with this guy. And I was friends with him for a solid year before deciding to give him a chance. I was in a relationship with him for five months and ended up getting pregnant a month into the relationship. Very quickly. I did not originally plan on having children, I also believed I was infertile because I was in an abusive relationship where the man tried to purposefully impregnate me so I wouldn't leave and I never got pregnant. I was 20 y/o when I got pregnant with my son. My son's father, Mark, kept telling me abortion was an option. I couldn't see myself aborting, I believe it's a woman's choice but I couldn't do it. So him and I break up when I'm 4 months pregnant because he ended up back handing me across the face and I had suspicions he was cheating on me(he was because he started dating the girl as soon as we broke up). During the rest of my pregnancy, I didn't hear from Mark at all. But after my son was born, I heard rumors Mark was going around telling people I wouldn't let him see his son. My response to that was "It's a little difficult to deny someone visitation of their child, if they don't ask to see them." I take him for child support when my son is 3, I tried to do it without him but I needed at least financial help. That's when Mark decided he wanted to see our son. I let him because if my son can have both parents in his life, he should. Not even a year later, Mark began refusing to see our son. I recently discovered he's telling his fiancee(which they've been together under a year) that I tried to press assault charges on him, I apparently yelled at him in public for his parenting choices, and that he pays me way more in child support than he actually does. His fiancee wanted to talk to me civilly so we did, or at least I thought we did. But she sent me a message some hours later calling me crazy. I sent her screenshots of mine and Mark's conversations in which he says he didn't want his son and doesn't want to see him. And I sent her proof of child support statements. But then his fiancee asks me to lower the child support. And she said "If he doesn't want to be involved then he doesn't have to be involved. He doesn't want to be in your son's life because your crazy and he doesn't trust you."
AITAH for telling her no, I'm not lowering the child support? I apologize it was so long.

For context, the woman is just awful to me. I spent 5+ years trying to bend over backwards, doing whatever she wanted because I wanted her to like me and I was a major people pleaser. I set my first boundary when I had my first baby a year and a half ago, and from then on, she was very open about how much she hated me to my husband and everyone who would listen, which was so hurtful because at the time, I truly thought she actually loved me and it was a gut punch to have that realization that she never did, and to find out she'd actually talked badly about me behind my back the entire time. She had always said and done stuff to hurt my feelings and she was mean to me quite often but I stupidly thought she still loved me, because I wanted to have loving in-laws. I never got over how she could treat me so horribly while I was in the middle of labor with zero disregard of my feelings or the fact that I was trying to focus on having a healthy and stress free birth - but it only got worse from there.
It got to the point where me and LO were NC for 10 months. After working with a couples therapist to get on the same page, me and DH agreed to let MIL & FIL finally visit our house to see LO 3 weeks ago. They have given us the silent treatment since their visit because I'm sure "they're upset about something I did wrong", and to me that just confirms that they're not ever going to change because I was very courteous and nice to them and my DH agrees that we did nothing that should've made them upset or offended. I had absolutely no hope that they would change but my husband did, but now he is finally seeing that they are incapable of being mature and respectable adults.
Anyway, with the recommendation of our couples therapist, my husband sent her a Mother's Day card signed from only himself last week and on Saturday she texted him, "wow, what a lovely surprise. Thanks for the card". The therapist's thought behind it was that if DH didn't say anything, I would be blamed (which is true) and would add fuel to the fire. I was going back and forth on whether or not I'd say anything back if she wished me a Happy Mother's Day yesterday but she didn't say anything at all. I wish it didn't bother me but it does. I shouldn't be surprised since she has never wished me a Happy Mother's Day before. In fact, my first Mother's Day when I was pregnant in my first trimester, she told me "it didn't count because I wasn't a Mom yet". (Fully disagree, but okayyyy. Just an example of how rude she is.) She didn't wish me one last year either, even though I wished her one.
Yesterday afternoon, my DH was like, "maybe you should wish her a Happy Mother's Day so it doesn't give her another reason to be mad." I just had to be real with him. I don't care if she's mad. I don't want to be inauthentic and fake and wish her a Happy Mother's Day because she does not deserve one from me. I'm not trying to be mean or cruel or petty. I just really did not want to. MIL is not my mom. I already have a Mom, someone who is actually nice to me and loves me and cares about me, respects my boundaries and who gave birth to me. Side note: MIL also ruined my last 2 Mother's Days with major guilt trips and saying mean things about me because I wanted to celebrate with my husband and child.
MIL has never been "motherly" to me. She has spent 6+ years making my life a living hell, talking shit about me when she doesn't get her way, screaming at me while I was in labor and calling me names because we didn't want visitors right away and it was "my fault because I'm controlling and baby hogging my literal newborn baby", and being passive aggressive/telling me all the things I was doing wrong as a new mom/how I wasn't breastfeeding right/criticizing me/leaving me voicemails about how I could do better, and be more like she was when she was a new mom/etc. Not to mention she has made fun of me in front of my child for having anxiety and OCD. She turned the whole family against me because I put up boundaries and she lost control of our lives. She has only said mean things about me since my son was born and she continues to be rude and disrespectful to me. Why on earth would I want to wish her a Happy Mother's Day?! I certainly don't wish that she had a bad Mother's Day or anything, but I'm not kissing her ass anymore. I stopped doing that the moment she crossed the line with her outrageous behavior when I was in labor. And I'm not going to do something to appease her, just to feed her ego. No thank you.
My husband said he completely understood and doesn't blame me at all. Don't hate on him, it was just a suggestion. He's 100% on my side and he's actually pretty pissed that she didn't bother to wish me a Happy Mother's Day. But to me, she's just showing him who she is more and more. Sooo can I go back to NC now? haha!
I am sure she is going to have something nasty to say about me not wishing her a Happy Mother's Day and I'm thankful my husband will back me up and is on the same page with me and is planning on telling her off about the silent treatment and how we are not tolerating her crap anymore anyway. The saga continues this week. Ugh. I wish I could just let it go and not think about it but unfortunately with OCD, unpleasant things tend to have a way of playing back in my head over and over. It's annoying lol.

A few months ago, I received a job opportunity from a center specializing in neurological evaluation and interventions, including transcranial magnetic stimulation. The center's surgeons are based in California, US, and they recently opened a new facility in Cancun. Since I was planning to move to Cancun, I was thrilled to find a job opportunity aligned with my career.
During the interview process, which lasted about a month, I had the chance to meet the head neurosurgeon and the CEO. Although they weren't specifically looking to fill my role, they were impressed by my background in software and neuroimaging. They proposed that we collaborate on a contractual project to assess whether there might be a potential position for me in the future.
In the meantime, the office boss, a Swedish immigrant in his 50s, asked me a few times to visit his office in order to get acquainted with the workplace. However, during one of these visits, he made an inappropriate and uncomfortable request. He asked if I could help him find a sex worker from Chiapas, the state where I lived before relocating to Cancun. Chiapas is a beautiful place, but unfortunately, it is also known for its poverty and exploitation. I was taken aback by his request, and I politely explained that I could only engage in work that aligns with my qualifications. It made me feel vulnerable, especially when he commented on my appearance and assured me that his comments were not meant to offend me.
In the following week, while I was still waiting for a response from the surgeons, he asked me to come to the office again for some updates. Once again, he brought up the topic of finding a sex worker and even offered a laptop as an incentive. He knew that I needed a new laptop because mine had been stolen, and during the interviews, I had mentioned my desire to improve my financial stability after a challenging year. I refused his request once more, but he persisted, implying that I could earn the laptop if I complied. This situation made me feel deeply uncomfortable.
Over the next few days, he informed me that I would receive a job offer soon. However, he had negotiated with the surgeons to offer me around 50% less than what was initially discussed during our first call. When I asked for an explanation, he claimed there was some confusion and suggested that I should negotiate a higher salary directly with the doctors, emphasizing that I should know my worth. I was furious because I realized he had intentionally deceived me, as negotiating a higher salary at this stage would be much more challenging.
He then made a remark suggesting that he may not have been well-informed about salary figures in Mexico. I'm Mexican born!
Despite everything, I tried to overlook these incidents, hoping that I could mainly work remotely and avoid extensive interaction with this individual. However, he invited me to the office once again to discuss a potential project I might work on after joining the company. Given the circumstances, I explicitly stated that I would only undertake any tasks after signing a contract. This upset him, and he insisted that I do him a favor, explaining that he needed the project to pay for his daughter's tuition.
A couple of weeks ago, I received an email with updates regarding the project, but I haven't responded yet. I'm unsure how to proceed with this situation. I don't believe the doctors are aware of this individual's behavior, and I don't want to come across as ungrateful by expressing my discomfort. I feel extremely uneasy about this whole situation.
I would greatly appreciate any advice or suggestions!

Hi - I'm Paul and I follow the e-commerce industry closely for my Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter. Each week I post a summary recap of the week's top stories, which I cover in depth in the newsletter. Let's dive in...
___
STAT OF THE WEEK: Kohl's sales have shrunk by $2.3B since 2019. During that same period of time, the company lost 1.3M customers who no longer shop with the retailer.
___
BigCommerce is exploring a sale after attracting takeover interest, according to sources who chose to remain anonymous due to the confidentiality of the information. The sources said that BigCommerce asked investment bank Qatalyst Partners to solicit interest from potential buyers that include private equity firms, but that the discussions are at an early stage and no deal is certain.
___
Squarespace announced that it will be going private in a $6.9B all-cash deal with private-equity firm Permira, who agreed to pay $44 per share (a roughly 30% premium). Although Squarespace never lost 90% of its share price like BigCommerce, it has experienced a tumultuous time on the market since its IPO in May 2021 — opening around $49.50 and at times trading in the low $20s. Shares rose nearly 13% to $43 in pre-market trading upon release of the news.
___
ByteDance filed a lawsuit in US federal court seeking to block the new law that would force the sale or ban of the app within the country. The lawsuit challenges the law on constitutional grounds, also citing commercial, technical, and legal hurdles, as well as opposition from Beijing. Legal experts say the legal battle will play out in the courts in coming months and likely will reach the Supreme Court.
___
OpenAI unveiled its newest model, GPT-4o, designed to turn ChatGPT into a digital personal assistant that can engage in real-time, spoken conversations and interact with users using text, screenshots, photos, documents, and charts. The new version of ChatGPT also has memory capabilities, which means it can learn from previous conversations. It will be available to both unpaid and premium customers alike. OpenAI also announced that it would be launching a desktop app with the GPT-4o capabilities, giving users another platform to interact with the technology outside of a web browser.
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Amazon launched in South Africa last week, marking its first marketplace in sub-Saharan Africa, and bringing its total number of marketplaces worldwide to 22. To launch the new marketplace, Amazon is offering free delivery on first orders and on subsequent orders above R500 (about $27), access to 3,000 pick-up points, status updates via WhatsApp to track orders, 30 day refunds, and 24/7 customer support. The marketplace was supposed to launch in the country in 2023, but got delayed due to changes in priorities within Amazon.
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In an unlikely partnership, Instacart is partnering with Uber Eats to expand into the restaurant delivery business. Instacart will add a new tab for restaurant delivery to its app in the coming weeks, the listings will be provided by Uber, and the food will be picked up and delivered by Uber Eats drivers. Customers will receive the same prices on both apps and Instacart will receive an affiliate commission on orders. It's a strange partnership though given that Instacart and Uber Eats actively compete on grocery delivery. Are they planning to merge? Uber says no.
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Apple's advertisement for its latest iPad Pro sparked criticism for showing an animation of musical instruments, paint cans, cameras, record players, and other symbols of creativity being crushed by a giant machine, with the output being the new iPad Pro, which the company says is the thinnest Apple product ever. In this context, “crushing” was supposed to symbolize “consolidating” and “compacting” — with the visuals meant to showcase how the new iPad Pro puts the power of all these tools into the hands of creators in one thin device. However online commenters criticized the ad as insensitive and as symbolizing a “destruction of the human experience.” The ad hit the web on Tuesday, and by Thursday, Apple issued a mea culpa and apologized for the campaign.
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Google is encouraging merchants to enable conversion annotations on their Google Shopping ads, which offer social proof that highlight a product's popularity. Conversion annotations like “best selling” or “3K shopped here recently” would provide visual cues about a product’s popularity or sales performance directly in the ad unit. Annotations like these are par for the course with e-commerce retailers including Amazon, Walmart, and Temu, which all employ similar tactics. They can provide valuable info for shoppers and also help with conversions. However they also open data privacy concerns, given that Google is not the actual retailer or marketplace selling the items, so a merchant would have to share this purchase history data from their e-commerce platform with Google — which technically most already do by giving access to GA4.
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Shein is attempting to join the National Retail Federation as it pursues regulatory approval to go public in the US. The company believes that NRF membership would boost its chances of receiving SEC approval. However so far, Shein has been rejected numerous times. An anonymous source familiar with the matter said someone with heavy influence at the NRF is strongly against the Shein's admittance. However board members who spoke to CNBC said that Shein's membership application hadn't come up in meetings, and that they aren't involved in deciding which companies are granted access.
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Amazon is leading the way with selling home goods, capturing 18.8% of consumer home furnishings spending, compared to Walmart's 7.3% market share. Notably, Amazon’s gains in the furniture category come in spite of the company’s decision to phase out two of its three furniture brands last year.
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Stanley, which is projected to do $750M in sales this year, up from $73M in 2019, after seeing its water bottles become a status symbol thanks to TikTok, is now expanding into trendier accessories. The company is launching a line of bags called the All-Day Collection which include a mini cooler, backpack cooler, and Quencher Carry-All, designed for someone to sling their Stanley over their hip.
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Jack Dorsey left the Bluesky board and deleted his account on the service he helped kickstart, claiming that Bluesky was “literally repeating all the mistakes” he made while running Twitter. Dorsey says he never intended Bluesky to be an independent company, but rather, an open source protocol that Twitter was supposed to be the first client of. He also confirmed that he is financially backing Nostr, another decentralized Twitter-like service popular among crypto enthusiasts and run by an anonymous founder.
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Amazon is deploying 50 electric trucks in California, which it claims is the largest EV fleet in the country, as part of its mission to eliminate pollution from its global operations. The trucks will be integrated into first-mile operations, moving goods from container ships at the ports to fulfillment centers, as well as middle-mile operations, transporting packages from fulfillment centers to delivery centers.
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Wix launched a new tool called AI Portfolio Creator, which allows a user to upload and organize large-scale image collections, select the type of portfolio they want, and then have the AI tool sort and generate a portfolio with clustered images, recommended titles and descriptions, and personalized layout options.
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Amazon is now requiring all dietary supplements to be verified by a third-party testing, inspection, and certification organization — which is something that not even the FDA requires. Amazon is the largest supplement retailer in the US ahead of Walmart and Target, and its new requirements are expected to put more pressure on the industry, which is being scrutinized more than ever.
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Alibaba is revamping its flagship retail website Taobao for the first time in seven years with a focus on providing a smoother search and buying process. The website overhaul comes ahead of the 618 sales event, China's second-largest annual shopping event. A few weeks ago I reported that Eddie Wu, the CEO of Alibaba Group, would now be directly overseeing its domestic e-commerce arm which includes Taobao and Tmall Group, and it sounds like he's hitting the ground running with his new responsibilities.
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Amazon is hosting its first-ever Amazon Book Sale, a new shopping event starting on May 15th that offers up to 50% off print best sellers and up to 80% off Kindle Books. The six day shopping event will exclusively run in the US, and Prime-membership is not required to take advantage of the deals.
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FTX reported that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded. The company owes about $11.2B to its customers and estimates that it has between $14.5B and $16.3B to distribute to them. The caveat is that customers will receive the USD value of their holdings at the time of the exchange collapse, and not the actual crypto holdings themselves, which means that they'll miss out on all gains during the past two years during which BTC went from around $16k to now over $60k. Better than nothing though, that's for sure.
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800,000 consumers in Europe and the US were duped into sharing card details and other sensitive personal data with a network of fake online designer shops operated from China, which comprised one of the largest scams of its kind with 76,000 fake websites created. The scammers used expired domains to host its fake shops in order to help avoid detection by websites or brand owners, and more than 1M orders were processed in the past three years alone.
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Beyond Inc, which owns Bed Bath & Beyond, Overstock, and Zulily, reported that its Q1 net loss swelled to $72M from $10M a year ago, while its operating loss widened to $58M from $8M. The company's active customers grew to 6M, up 26% from nearly 5M a year ago, however, its average order value dropped to $173 from $220 a year earlier.
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TikTok will begin automatically labeling AI generated content when it is uploaded from certain platforms like DALL.E 3, Adobe Firefly, Photoshop, and Microsoft Copilot. TikTok will also start attaching Content Credentials to content, which will remain on the media when downloaded, allowing other platforms to read the metadata.
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eBay is testing an Add To Cart button in search results that opens a Quick View window, allowing buyers to skip the listing page. Technically the button should probably not be labeled “Add To Cart” since it doesn't perform that action, but rather, displays a quick view window with three buttons: Buy It Now, Add To Cart, View All Details. Sellers are worried that buyers will miss crucial details in the product description that may lead to increased returns and negative feedback.
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Amazon is planning to launch its fleet of drones in Tolleson, Arizona, but the city's extreme temperature is hampering its efforts. Drones can't operate in temperatures exceeding 104 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that Tolleson crosses for a full three months of the year.
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A US district judge dismissed X's lawsuit against Bright Data, a data-scraping company accused of improperly accessing X system and violating X terms and state laws when scraping and selling data. The judge basically said that if X owned the data, it could perhaps argue that it has exclusive rights to control it, but then X wouldn't be able to enjoy the safe harbor of Section 230, which allows the platform to avoid liability for third-party content. Can't have it both ways!
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Nintendo is discontinuing its X integration for the switch on June 10th, which means users will no longer be able to post screenshots or videos to the platform from their device. The drop in support also affects games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which had game-specific options to send out tweets. Microsoft Xbox dropped support for X in April 2023 and Sony Playstation dropped the service in October 2023 due to the increase in X's API access fees.
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Amazon claimed that its recordable incident rate — a metric that comprises all injuries requiring “more than basic first-aid treatment” — at its US warehouses has improved by 24% since 2019. However the National Employment Law Project challenged Amazon's injury data in a report last week, claiming that Amazon's overall injury rate in 2023 was 71% higher than that of other employers in the sector at 6.5 cases per 100 workers.
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Amazon Ads announced three new advertising formats for streaming TV including shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads, and interactive trivia ads. Amazon did not say when the new ad types would officially launch, but noted that it will formally present them at a presentation on May 14th.
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Meta is rolling out an expanded set of generative AI ad tools that can create full image variations with text overlays, expand images to fit across different aspect ratios, and generate alternate versions of headlines and other ad text. The features will become available globally to advertisers by the end of the year.
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Square introduced a tool called Square Kiosk to allow self-service ordering at fast food restaurants. The device is a combined software, hardware, and payment solution that allows customers to select exactly what they want with customization options, upgrades, and add-ons.
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The European Parliament announced new measures to make packaging more sustainable and reduce packaging waste in the EU, including reduction targets of 15% by 2040 — which sounds far away but is only 16 years away?! As part of the new rules, the EU will set maximum empty space ratios for e-commerce transportation, ban certain single-use plastic packaging types, and beverage distributors and take-away food will have to offer consumers the option of bringing their own container.
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Indians who pre-ordered Teslas in 2016 are giving up and seeking refunds of their deposits after Elon Musk canceled another visit to the country last month. Disillusioned Tesla enthusiasts in India say they will now buy a car from the company only if they see it in a showroom, or they'll buy a different electrical vehicle from a company that actually exists in the country.
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Target is limiting its Pride Month collection to select stores this year instead of rolling out the merchandise nationwide like it typically has for the past decade, due to backlash the retailer experienced last year. Last May customers in certain stores knocked down LGBTQ+ merchandise displays, angrily approached store employees, and posted threatening videos on social media from inside the stores.
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E-commerce spending from Jan 1 to April 30, 2024 rose 7% YoY to $331.6B, according to Adobe Analytics. One trend Adobe identified during the period is a shift of online spending to purchasing the cheapest goods across personal care, electronics, apparel, home & garden, furniture, and grocery.
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Plus 7 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest, including Shopify's acquisition of Peel, a tool that integrates with a merchant's tech stack including Klaviyo and Recharge and helps them analyze their sales data to improve customer retention.
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I hope you found this recap helpful. See you next week!
For more details on each story and sources, see the full edition: https://www.shopifreaks.com/bigcommerce-for-sale-openai-gpt-4o-instacarts-unlikely-partnership/
What else is new in e-commerce? Share stories of interesting in the comments below (including in your own business) or on shopifreaks.
-PAUL Editor of Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter
PS: Want the full editions delivered to your Inbox each week? Join free at www.shopifreaks.com

Hey Everyone! I am choosing a new plan with my new employer.
The plan options I am choosing between is the base HSA plan that is $104 bi-weekly vs. the Mid non-HSA plan that is $151 bi-weekly.
To note, I am a 39 year old female. I will not be having a baby this year, I currently am in good health and havent needed to go to the doctor for anything that was outside of a preventative visit this past year. I work from home so I dont drive daily (which is a risk to me and if I was I probably would get the mid plan). If I had a doctor I went to regularly, then I would probably get the mid plan so this is a purely risk based decision I am making on the chance that my health were to turn or I got into an accident.
Each plan has a $5,000 deductible, but Ive had an hsa before and wasnt crazy about getting the almost $200 bills after the billing process went into effect. It looks like the difference between these two plans bi-weekly for me is about $1,200 and since I am not currently needing regular Dr. visits I am just not sure which pan to go with. Worst case I get into an accident and have high med bills, best case I remain in good health and overpay for benefits I didnt need, or really best case, remain in good health and save money with HSA..
Base HSA out of pocket max $6500 - employer does NOT contribute to HSA or I would choose this plan (my last employer contributed $2,000 per year which was awesome)
Mid Plan out of pocket max $7900 - ($10 pcp - $100 Specialist - hospital $350 copay - urgent care $75)
What is a good way to measure the risk in this case, or what would you choose?
Thanks in advance, I always hate having to make these choices!

My family will be visiting in June for a week. 5 adults, one toddler (1, and not quite walking yet). Interested in any and all suggestions on what to do/eat/see.
My parents are avid hikers, and plan to do a few. I am NOT, so I would love some ideas for alternative activities while they climb mountains 😂. We will be there for Father's Day, so something my husband and dad would enjoy doing/somewhere we could eat for that would be nice.
We're willing to drive for good food/shopping/experiences. We're not drinkers, so please no suggestions that revolve around alcohol.

So I know it’s may but this argument between me (24 NB) and my (34M) long distance boyfriend and so I thought I’d come here for some advice. So about a week before Valentine’s Day my boyfriend came down to visit for a weekend and we went do dinner we gave each other our valentines gifts and we had really good sex. Not to be that guy but I thought my bases were covered. So now flash forward to the actual holiday in question boyfriend knew that I had big plans for my fiancé(25F) since this was the first Valentine’s Day we were engaged. I made us reservations at a fancy restaurant, bought us corresponding outfits, and went and got a tattoo of a candy heart that says “mine” in the middle as her actual gift. I spent most of the day on the phone with my boyfriend like I normally do but I was distracted during the afternoon since I was getting ready for my night with my fiancé. He told me “besides telling happy Valentine’s Day earlier, you haven’t really done anything to make today feel special”. Now on one hand I can kinda understand where he’s coming from since this was also our first Valentine’s Day together but on the other hand with the fact that we have only been dating since October and I was spending my time focusing on my fiancé who’ve I’ve been with for years. We don’t have a hierarchy but I feel like it should’ve been a given that I would be celebrating with my nesting partner. But I don’t know, I obviously don’t want him to feel forgotten about but I also feel like he’s overstepping.

i’m staving off a panic attack with some deep breathing but can use your help, reddit.
tldr; gf went on a trip with a single female friend and two guys without disclosing who would be there
basically above. i asked who would be there and she said a random hodgepodge of friends. nothing to fret about. i started feeling strange when the photos she sent me only contained her or her female friend. seemed weird to omit certain people from the photos. unless it was intentional. the other two party members are random dudes who are friends with the single female friend who my partner is visiting. i only found out this morning (she’s been gone for a week). she said she didn’t know that two guys would be there (of which i’m doubtful) and even then, why not say anything?
it’s not the fact that she’s there with two guys, rather the fact she felt the need to hide it. we haven’t talked about it yet but i plan to discuss it this evening after i pick her up from the airport
i’ve written out all my feelings and questions and want to get the the root of what would compel my partner to lie. it hurts when the person closest to you deceives you
i plan to get her point of view and try to understand why she made the decision to omit that fact, but i’ve also got a bag packed and will be staying with my brother for a week. maybe she thought she would spare me the anxiety if i didn’t know. rather, it opened a flood gate of worry
idk what im looking for from y’all; kind words, advice, wisdom, perspective…alls im doing now is trying to keep from breaking down and would love to hear im overreacting though i dont think thats the case…

Hi all,
I want to go to Thailand for 30 days. I have my international motorcycle permit, i plan on transporting with a bigger scooter (~500cc).
My main activity will be training Muay Thai/Western Boxing. I am heavily overweight and want to build some discipline. But i also want to relax as much as possible, im talking about daily 2hr massage, daily hot tub and whatever other relaxing activities i can find.
Ideally i will do a touristy thing 1 time a week. I plan on eating only prep food.
I need to be online ~1,5 hour daily, some co-working space where i can also meet some interesting people would be cool.
Based on this i imagine Fitness Street in Phuket would be ideal. But the thing is i read quite some negative stuff about Phuket, my friends that have visited Thailand also said that they felt like phuket was the least fun place to stay for them.
Any advice or recommendations would be highly appreciated.

So I still have some pain but it's relatively minor than what it was over the weekend. The dentist was not overly helpful as she just thought it was inflammation. The chiropractor was incredibly helpful though.
And as I suspected my jaw was out of alignment. The left side was completely jammed to the point that it was shocking that I could move my jaw. Meanwhile the right side ligament was pulling the left side of my jaw to the right. So lesson learned that I should see a chiropractor for these issues.
My primary care physician also prescribed me a stronger anti-inflammatory medication as Advil wasn't effective in treating my pain.
I have two more sessions this week with my chiropractor but it's only $15 per session with my Medicare Advantage plan which I'm really happy about.
Two things I will be doing in regards to the TMJ in addition to the chiropractor: Botox on May 22nd and getting in with a orthodontist who specializes in TMJ to get fitted for a specialized retainesplint which is on June 10th.
But I'm just so happy with my results from the chiropractor. I was in crippling pain from my jaw and I was worried that I would have to miss my youngest sister's college graduation due to the pain. Or have to attend but be a party pooper due to being in pain all the time.
Some of the Redditors in this subreddit wanted an update so I wanted to make sure that I give a proper update.

To start for some context my(26F) parents(59M)(45F) are not bad people, they adopted me when I was 12 and I have had a fairly good life, there were issues as the abuse I suffered in the foster system was worse then what was documented in my file as is most of the time with the foster system. I was cold and standoffish, inappropriate behavior and some degree of autism and ADHD that made it so understanding my surroundings was difficult. My parents were ill equipped to deal with that level of trauma and it lead to our relationship getting worse and worse as the years went. When I was 19-20 I had a break down from the pressure and destroyed my life, my parents took me in and helped me financially get back up but that wasn't easy. My mom made living there awful, they were in control of my finances as I had blown my money in my break down, I was given 50 dollars every two weeks from my paycheck(I was always working while trying to recover financially as not having a job is unacceptable) for any supplies I needed including food as I was over 18 and there were not going to cook for me. my dad did offer to help buy me some toiletries every now and again. It was my responsibility to get up, go to work and figure out everything. My mom wouldn't let me forget she had to "bail me out" and that she would never help again. Then in October 2020 I moved out into an RV someone was offering as a way to have my own space and to stop the constant fights me and my mom would have.
Since then I have been completely finically independent, I do have a phone line through my parents that I pay for monthly, and if they asked I would get my own line, I stay for convivence as the price I get for the data cannot be beat. I got scammed at a dealership and ended up with a high interest rate that my dad worked to cosign elsewhere so I could get a lower rate, it is still my responsibility to pay as the car is mine. I pay for everything I have and it was hard but I buck up and do it. I have friends who have helped me through the years and I view them as family as I truly feel accepted by them despite my flaws and issues. There is one friend I met through a friend's high fantasy roleplay server lets call him peter. Peter and I have never met in person as I live in the USA and he lives in Brazil, but we became friends and through him I learned things I was never taught.
I was taught to love myself and that I don't always need to give 100% all the time and a lot of the times the bare minimum was enough. That I am beautiful and I don't need to fit the image my parents saw as best. We were both dating other people at the time but due to fate both our relationships fell and we grew closer. I know there are a lot of internet scams and whatnot but I truly believe in our relationship as we have both talked for hours, I have video called him impromptu, so no chance for modifying audio or visuals. He has given me what gifts when he can as, he is less well off then I am. Which is fine, my parents had money and I was never happy, with him I am as I feel he genuinely loves me as a person. while he was dating someone else and having zeros eyes on me, as a friend he said he hated to hear me say how much I hated myself, at the time I was angry he implied I didn't deserve the hate, now I don't even remember what hating myself felt like most days.
I have paid for a two week trip to stay in brazil with him so we can meet and see if this is something we want to peruse more seriously. I made the mistake of being more open and honest as a person (peter's fault again), and my parents found out and were not happy. My dad has said he can't stop me as an adult but thinks what I am doing is dumb and dangerous, I can understand my dad's worry as I think any loving responsible parent would be worried to hear their daughter is traveling alone to a country. My mom was a different story, I was about to leave from babysitting my younger sisters, 11 and 5(I do it as a favor and because I love my sisters dearly) . My mom and I are not close, I once when I was first feeling some feelings tried to talk to her as to what made her sure dad was the one and I texted saying I would like to talk about it alone. She then brought it up in front of the whole dinning table as I was visiting in front of my sisters and dad, so I played it off as casual and we left it at that.
She questioned why I would go somewhere I have never been, she brought up all the horrible scenarios that could happen, to lighten the mood when she asked what I would do if I was dead there, I said I would be dead so at that point it didn't matter. Wrong thing to say as she goes off, I try to reassure her that I am taking precautions, I have done the research, the statistics, I looked up the area and airport layout, I know the way to the address he gave and yes, the video I had him take live, I only implied we were friends and not romantically inclined as I don't want to give her ammo to use. She told me why not take a friend with me and I can postpone my trip so they can go. (I brought that up to my friend later and said it was generous of my mom to offer to pay for her trip as she is between jobs and doesn't have her passport). Then my mom said that I would be going to a country without rules, when I brought up that the US has just as many crimes she said that the US is headed that way but we live in a small good town without corruption. To that I told her wasn't true as there is a drug house behind my friends apartment that the cops know about and that I knew a friend whos said his dad used to take bribes while he was a cop in that town.
She then said she may be naïve but she doesn't hang around the "kind of people who would know that". She tried to bring religion into it and asked why I would hang around non believers, I am close to my faith and said that how am I to show our God's love if I only hang out and interact with other Christians, to which she said I had a point and didn't bring up the religious angle again. After that we were going back and forth about finances and how my car is broken how could I think of going on the trip, my car broke about 2 months after I booked and planned my trip, and I am working to fix it. My mom as if it was a threat said to not expect her or my dad to drive anywhere to help me, to which I said I would never expect her to help me, to which her words were good, as she wouldn't bail me out. I am 100% paying for this trip myself, I have worked and saved for it and I have never been out of the country and looking for ways to make my trip as smooth as possible through research .
What I need to know is how do I navigate this situation, my parents are cold to me and I would be ok seeing them less, but my sisters are there and I cannot just leave and not be apart of their life. I love my parents, despite their faults they are the only people I view as my family beyond my found one. Is there a way to make this work?
TLDR: My parents are being cold to me due to a trip I am taking to brazil to meet a male "friend", what can I do to make sure our relationship doesn't fall apart worse so I can be in my sister's lives?

You guys were awesome with suggestions on must see/visit places so I am wondering if you can make suggestions on the best places to eat in the following areas. We love all types of food. Would also love suggestions on bakeries or chocolate/candy stores.
No chain restaurants, no fine dining. Must be able to come in casual clothes and a bit disheveled as we will be mostly rustic tent camping and adventuring. ;-)
I have already made note of the following places. If you would NOT recommend any of these please let me know:
Manistique - Upper Crust, Cedar Street Cafe
Musining - Driftwood Deli, Cooking Carberry's Wood Fired Pizza
Marquette - Dia Taco Truck
Houghton - Roys, Toni's
Copper Harbor - Tamarack Inn
Thanks all! I appreciate all your help in planning a great trip for my kiddos!

As the world faded away into nothing but a dark void, Tom felt the only mildly familiar sensation of magic flowing like a gentle stream. It wasn’t much of a draw, but it was certainly noticeable.
“Right, best make this quick then,” he tried thinking to himself, feeling the flow peak as he did.
“Who is this? Make what quick?” an ethereal sounding female voice replied. It did sound a bit like how he remembered Joelina sounding. Though she did not exactly sound calm.
“Uhm… Hello? Anyone there?”
“Yes hello. Who is this? What must be done quick? Answer me at once!”
“It’s Tom… Is that you, Joelina?”
“Yes of course it is! Stupid dragons taking ages, I have questions for you! So many questiiioooonssss...”
“Yeah I figured that… Fire away I suppose.” Tom replied a little uncertainly as to just what he might be in for.
“Firstly! Did you read the letters?”
“I did yeah…”
“Disregard them, I have learned much since they were written! So much more yes, cursed blessed knowledge…”
“So you do know we have gone to space then?”
“What? No, I re-experienced the memory you had of the movie about the moon mission. It was evident on the second watching that it was trickery of the eye! Spaceflight is but a myth!”
“Riiight.”
“Then how have your kind visited space? And what of the gods above!? it was evident that the woman with the crystals was but a fraud!” Joelina explained with all the calm and restraint of a shoppingmall Karen
“Well the rockets to the moon, that did happen.” Tom attempted, doing his best to remain calm and diplomatic. “The movie you saw was probably a recreation… Tell me, did things go wrong on that trip but they made it home anyway?”
“Yes, do you know of what I speak? Ahr what am I proclaiming! of course you do it is your own memories, how could I forget.”
“Yea…, you watched a movie about Apollo 13 I think. Good movie, and that all happened too. Like for real happened”
“I see…” Joelina replied, sounding rather unstable. “And what of the gods?”
“We ain’t got any. Well not in space at least.”
“Impossible!”
“No, quite possible. Many still believe in gods though, but let’s not get into that too much. It’s a right old mess.”
“No, you must tell me what happened to the gods? Have they left you?”
“Well some think so, but no. I just think it all works a bit different for us. They might be a little more hands off.”
“But the churches… and these religious warriors you did battle with,” the inquisitor all but muttered to herself, sounding like she was struggling to put pieces together. “Do Jesus and Islam fight for power then? no no, they would have long since lost the battles to the ancient gods of war the teachers spoke of… though why they were always naked eludes me yeeees…”
“No, again we don’t really have gods just floating around... Could we please talk about something else? Or is that all you wanted to know?” Tom tried, hoping he really didn’t have to dive deeper into that particular subject.
“No no don’t you dare cut me off! I have seen what you talked of, nuclear fire and missiles, ships of the oceans and planes soaring in the skies. But is it not all fake? Surely it must be! It must be? It must be…”
“I don’t know what you saw… but we have ships sailing around. If you’ve ever seen flying ships like you have here then that’s fake I can assure you of that. We do have airships, but they look more like really big long balloons.”
“But we could make such vessels, or someone could from times past. If you can visit the moon then surely you can make a ship for the skies!”
“No no, we ain’t got grav oil. Or dragon essence as I guess it’s called. That means no anti gravity, and that means weight is a very very big problem for anything you wanna make fly. Planes and helicopters are how we fly. Remember how I flew to Afghanistan on a big ass plane? Or when I learned to parachute later?”
“What is parachute? is it the ham from your times doing, vacationing? what has dried meat products got to do with flying machines of battle!”
“Wooo easy now easy. I guess you didn’t get that far yet. Uhm. It’s a cloth kite you dangle from and then glide to the ground. Very good fun.”
“A cloth kite used to fly?... such strange inventions. Wait was there not a movie of with something of that nature? yeeee… there was a song. I liked that song… something something brains upon his chute. Yeesss…”
“Yeah… You’ll know it when you see it. I have one actually.” Tom clarified trying not to get too weirded out.
“You must demonstrate on a suitable occasion.”
“Yeah… I do have a question too though,” Tom replied, letting silence reign for a short time. “...Your last letter was in Danish.”
“Oh, uhm yes. I- I was having some difficulty separating what was real and what was not… I still am. Do not tell Glazz, she musten know the truth yet. She seeks to limit my excursions.”
“You’ve ended up like I did, have you?”
“No no no, the effects do indeed recede as expected, everything is in good order… But I had to know more. So so much moooore.”
“Maybe you should cool it a bit. You never know when a brain snaps. Or how,” Tom tried, confident his advice would be ignored.
“There is not time!”
“And why is that? How is it going in our beloved Inquisition?”
“Mind your tongue, human! Things are progressing, but so are our enemies. Infiltrators have been caught, traitors within our ranks are making their moves. The reemergence of Rashan, attacks on mines, keeps and a daring heist attempt at a Royal Guard fortress! The game is afoot, we cannot delay.”
“You can’t overreach yourself either. Weren’t you supposed to be winning over the rest of the inquisition right about now? Can’t do that as a gibbering mess.”
There was silence for a while more after that. “Glazz sent you a letter? What did it say?! You may not keep secrets from me- wait not… I should confiscate her arm… she cannot write with her left. Yes far better plan, avoid upsetting him. And fill her pen with invisible ink. Yes very good.”
“No, it’s just obvious to any idiot. But what about winter, won’t things slow down?”
“They should, yet as autumn progresses it has only been picking up. I hope they too are running out of time… But time for what? I must know what they are planning. They might be behind schedule. But what SCHEDULE! sorry…”
“Well you’re not gonna find the answer to that in my memories, now are you?”
“You were sent by someone. You are here for a purpose. I must know this purpose. It will help me understand. The puzzle is large and much of the box kept from me.”
“As far as I’m concerned, I’m here to help you guys get in gear. That’s a decades to centuries long sorta problem, not a couple of years. Sounds like this war will be in the couple of years category.”
“Then why now? Why did you arrive now?!”
“Shitty luck? Sounds like 10 years ago would have been a lot better… Oh on that note, did you hear? We found something down below.”
“No, Paulin would have told me.”Joelina dismissed, he could almost feel her turning her snout up and away from him.
“Well we opened the vault like 3 days ago,” Tom replied, quite surprised Paulin hadn’t said anything. “Wait yeah she can send you messages, no? She sent the message about what we wanted to buy too, didn’t she?... How did she do that by the way? Why didn’t you just have her ask me questions?”
“That is not for you to know, and this is not for her.”
“Really? More secrets still? Come on, tell me or I’ll let you think flying whales exist.”
“I know those are not real. If they were, you would have harvested them long ago! likely for some deranged snack… or facial decoration.”
“True, but you get the idea,” Tom persisted, feeling like this was something worth pushing for. Why would Paulin not have let her precious Joelina know?
“Very well. This does not leave your mind… In the name of, what was it called… camaraderie. Paulin is in possession of joined paper. Messages may be written down and read by anyone with similarly joined paper. Unsecured. Originally believed to be fore love letters… dastardly studs and wenches using perfectly good magic for such trivialness… simply tie the message to a rock and throw it though the window. Most peasants cannot even afford glass” Joelina trailed off, seemingly zoning out once more.
“You have magical paper that can relay written information… and you don’t fucking use it!?” Tom explaimed, not quite believing what he was hearing.
“No, we do not know how to make freshly bonded paper… only more linked to all other paper in existence…” Joelina agreed. He could almost feel her looking at the floor in shame. “But it is not as if you are infallible, why did you not bring one of these radios?”
“I uhm…”
“Why didn’t you?!”
“I forgot,” Tom admitted, thinking back to his packing days. Of all the things that could have proven useful, that one might have been his biggest blunder.
“For the love of all that is holy! You are our saviour?!” Joelina scolded, understandably so, but still.
“Hey I never claimed to be smart!”
“I have lived your dreams. That is a lie! You very much claim to be smart!”
“Fuck off, I know you are just a scared little insecure girl.”
“She died 30 years ago!”
“Well I haven’t gotten to that bit yet!”
“What in the devils do you mean?” Joelina questioned calming right down in a fraction of a second.
“I’ve only had like three proper dreams about you… wait no, not like that,” Tom blurted out as it clicked just how wrong that sounded. Joelina didn’t seem to care in the slightest though.
“Three? That is it!?” going right back to outrage.
“Yeah… Wait, how many have you had?” Tom questioned. He rather wanted to know just how much she might know about him in addition to the memories she had already picked through when inside his head.
“Several a day!” the inquisitor exclaimed in reply.
“Okay, I can see how that would drive someone a bit mad.”
“I am not going mad!”
“Did Glazz say the same thing?” Tom questioned, quite certain he was striking a nerve.
There was no reply for quite some time, Tom feeling the headache growing as things grew tranquil once more. He could feel his breath. It was rapid, and his heart was pounding. He probably shouldn’t do this for much longer. Thus he endeavored to break the silence.
“You probably should listen to her you know.”
“No! These matters are above her station!”
“Hasn’t she been in the Inquisition longer than you?”
“She has yes. But she is no inquisitor. She is a body guard.”
“Seems like she is a wee bit more than that,” Tom pushed on. He didn’t yet know how those two came to stick together, but it was clear they had been working together for decades by now. All the way since she was assigned to Harvik
“Mind your own matters, human.”
“Very well, don’t think I can keep this up anyway.”
“We have barely been chatting! Where do the dogs come from?!”
“Selective breeding for thousands of years. But I’m gonna go. Take a break, do what Glazz says… even if Jacky hates her.”
Yet more silence followed that, though it was brief and Joelina was the first to speak again.
“Fine! In the interest of cooperation I shall let you rest. Wear the earring at all times, I shall be contacting you again soon.”
“I think I’m gonna be the judge of that. I’ll put it on when I feel like it.”
“You will do as I say!”
“You need a nap and a bit to calm down. I’ll give you three days. Around noon. See yah… How do I get this thing off?”
“I’m not telling you,” Joelina grumped like a little girl. She really didn’t seem quite like herself at all today. She had been the spitting image of restraint and arrogance before. The arrogance was still there, but the restraint had certainly gone.
“Come on, do I just try to cut off the magic or is that a bad idea?”
“If you answer a question I might answer.”
“Right then… Gimme gimme gimme aaaa-”
“JUST CUT IT! Farewell!” she called out loud enough Tom’s head pulsed and then there was blissful silence once more.
“Hehe. That did the trick, right concentrate on that funny feeling aaan-”
__________________________________________________________________________________
After dinner had been rounded up, Dakota had given a brief address as to some of the news received. There wasn’t much that hadn’t already made the rounds at the tables during the dinner itself. The war had been expanding, recruitment had started in full in the cities, and if not for the rather special situation at Bizmati they could have expected their banners to get called by spring.
Rumors had it that the kingdom was preparing itself for counterstrikes the following spring, which meant training through the winter for many volunteers.
“And a lot of not so volunteers,” Fengi muttered as Dakota carried on with the address.
“You can say that twice. At least the street rats might get something to eat and a place to sleep,” Tirox the trader escort added.
“I suppose that is true. Not a bad deal in winter time… I might even have taken it.”
“But we must instead keep our minds on our home,” Dakota carried on, talking to the whole hall. “There can be no mistake, we will be a target. We will be ready. They are getting bolder by the day it seems. It is not impossible they may attempt to take our keep before the winter comes. Or perhaps they will be waiting for spring. It is equally clear their forces are spread thin. We will weather such assaults, I have no doubt. But we must keep training. We must keep vigil. We cannot afford to be surprised or outmatched. I know you will all do your best. And tonight, we have no less than 4 dragons here. So breathe easy, have your snacks and your drinks. If the weather holds soon we will be finished with the warehouse and then we may make final preparations for winter. It is sure to be an interesting one for once.”
The hall replied with a half-discordant cheer, not overly enthusiastic unlike what Dakota had likely envisioned. The talk of them possibly getting attacked even before the snow came wasn’t really that encouraging. But Dakota tended to speak her mind, and she was probably right. Bizmati keep would be a damn tough nut to crack. And to Dakota’s credit she did seem to recognize she hadn’t really managed to rile them up.
“Didn’t you hear me?” she tried again in a slightly more humorous tone. “Eat, drink, and have fun! And put those tables together, don’t want you brooding in your corners.”
That did get a bit more of a reaction, as well as some good humored chuckles. People started getting up and set about moving the tables closer together.
It was a little rude to split up their guests in the same way as they normally did. Saph carried one of the benches over to the new spot, glancing around for any sign of Maiko, but there was no sign of him anywhere.
Feeling a little miffed, she sat down with the others as Ray came back with one of the small kegs of cider looking very excited. “We should have a taste, right?”
“Oh yes please!” Pho called out, Essy giving her a slight slap on the wrist.
“This one is only for those who paid for it. You will have to do with whatever you bought. Or the ale I’m sure they intend to serve.”
“Aww man. Not even a sip?”
“Okay, maybe a sip,” Essy relented. “Oh, I should get Koko his gift.”
“You got him a gift?” Saph questioned with mirth in her voice.
“Of course, that is what people do for each other… you did get Maiko something, right?”
Saph felt her expression slip a little as she prepared to disappoint their chief people person. “No, not really…”
“All that money and you didn’t get him shit? That’s cold girl,” Pho laughed, clearly finding it hilarious.
“Oh shut up, not as if I got something for Unkai either,” Fengi added, springing to Sapphire’s defence, though it seemed like the delivery had Fengi second guessing herself as well.
Esmeralda did look a little saddened by the news, but she was far too nice to say anything. Tirox however had no such filter.
“Oh don’t worry about it, just gotta go with a different sort of gift.” The diminutive guard laughed heartily at his joke. Udanti found it quite funny as well, and Pho certainly loved it. Bo just shook her head a little and went back to a small puzzle of some sort she had been working on, on and off, for most of the dinner by now.
“So uhm… One mug each?” Ray questioned, having been left hanging at the keg.
“Oh yes sorry, just the one, this stuff is expensive,” Saph replied, holding out her mug, Ray pushing it back down.
“One moment.” And she produced a wooden mallet and one of the metal taps. It looked like one of Raulf’s, so it was probably old as faded dragonscales.
Ray gingerly placed it against the cork and raised the mallet as the table fell silent in anticipation.
With a whack the tap went in clean with hardly a drop spilled, and Ray breathed a visible sigh of relief. “Right there we go.”
There was a quick round of cheers from the table, and Ray started pouring servings.
“Oh got yours open, have you?” the voice of Balethon came as the guard came walking up to the table, mug in hand and lizard on shoulder. “You all know we are gonna have to work out who got the better stuff, right?”
“Oh does it always have to be a competition with you, Balethon?” Saph questioned. She had just wanted to enjoy the cider.
“Look who is talking… And yeah of course we do! Just think of the bragging rights.”
Ray didn’t look too thrilled, nor did any of the girls who had actually paid for the keg. The rest of the table seemed to think it was a brilliant idea, even as Balethon’s voice carried and heads started to turn as people started to mingle between the now closely together tables.
“I’ll be the independent adjudicator!” Tirox declared, not receiving much attention as the full mugs started to get passed around. “Oh come on. I’ll be fair!”
“Shut it pipsqueak, you’ll end up taking 10 rounds of tastings before you make up your mind,” Udanti scolded, though in good humor.
“I might…” the guy relented, looking to Balethon. “Ey, by the way. Did you teach the brainlet any tricks?”
“Sure, Skitters can do a few things.”
“Aside from chasing the food?”
“You know what I think he might yeah,” Balethon replied sarcastically, gently tapping the static lizard twice on the head. The lizard didn’t do much save skitter about on his shoulder to face Balethon’s head, one eye pointing in whichever direction.
‘That thing just looks so dumb,’ Saph thought to herself as Ray handed her a mug. “Oh thank you.”
“Okay, Skitters. Up,” Balethon went, raising a claw into the air as if he wanted the lizard to jump. Or perhaps stand up. “Up… come on.”
There was no reaction from the lizard aside from it jerking to the left a bit, possibly having spotted a fly or something.
“Weeeell obedience might need some work,” Udanti chuckled. “Have you tried with some food in your hand?”
“Sure, then he just tries to eat the hand. Come on, Skitters. Up!” Balethon tried again, doing the gesture once more. And this time the little lizard jumped into the air. The little legs stretched out, taking its pitiful excuse for wings with it, and it half-fell half-glided to the floor where it hit with all the grace of a 6 year old on his first lesson. The slightly fat lizard bounced once, then rolled over twice before coming to a stop, looking around confused.
“Aaayyy! That’s a good boi,” Balethon went, going to pick it up again before someone stepped on it or it ran off under the tables. “And now you get a treat.” True to his word Skitters was fed a small piece of something or other which it seemed quite happy to snap up.
Fengi leaned in to whisper to Saph. “Was that the trick or did it just get sick of staying there?”
“I have no idea,” Saph replied, holding up her mug. “Cheers though.”
“Cheers,” Fengi replied as they clinked mugs.
“Oh hang on now, wait for me,” Essy protested as Ray finished pouring her mug and started on her own, looking to the girls as she questioned “Oh, also what about Jacky? Should we wait for her?”
“Who knows how long that will take?” Fengi replied, holding her mug impatiently.
“I’m sure she won’t mind. She is with Tom. We’ll let him have a mug as well,” Essy added with a reassuring nod, looking up to the high table. “Oh but we are missing Lin!”
“Oh right yeah she paid too… I can’t remember, did Edita chip in?”
“I don’t think so,” Sapphire replied, shaking her head as Essy got up to go fetch Linkosta. Balethon decided to take her place, a big grin on his face.
“So what else is going on over here?”
“Oh not much, hellooo little guy,” Pho went, trying to give skitters a scritching. In exchange he tried to eat her finger. “Oh… I mean I guess it doesn’t hurt.”
“Oh yeah, he can’t hurt a fly… well he can, but nothing more.”
“Shame he won’t get any bigger either,” Udanti added, nodding sagely. “Would have made a good rat hunter.”
“Nah… toe hunter though. Also where is the ale at?”
“Oh Raulf and Wiperna are getting ale and some of the bubble beer.”
“What is bubble beer?” Udanti questioned, tilting her head.
“Oh you’ll love it,” Saph interjected, waiting patiently as she saw Essy and Linkosta returning to the table out of the corner of her eye. “It’s an ale but it’s all fizzy.”
“Riiight… I’ve heard of fizzy beers before.”
“Oh yes, but this one is so much more fizzy.”
“It’s light and almost springlike.”
“Light ale? You mean for kids?”
“No no no. Just trust us it’s good.”
“Right right, I trust you,” the archer replied, looking to Essy and Linkosta, who seemed to be looking for a place to sit. “Should we not just put two end to end rather than this scrunching up business?”
“Yeah we should… Right get the craftsman table over here then. We don’t wanna have to smell the guards,” Saph called out, holding up her mug.
“Hey! That was uncalled for,” Balethon protested as Ray passed a mug to Linkosta. The girls all raised their mugs and had a sip, not willing to wait any longer. They all smacked their chops a little, looking down at the golden liquid. It was slightly fizzy too… and it tasted like the brew of the gods themselves. Ray was looking at them all visibly tense with anticipation and perhaps a twinge of fear.
“Ray… You have not disappointed,” Saph declared, nodding her approval, a smile creeping onto her face once more.
“Oh this is the best drink I think I’ve ever had,” Fengi added, taking another gentle sip.
Ray looked visibly relieved, her expression changing to one of ecstasy as she too took a sip herself. “Oh it’s even better than I remember. I’m glad you liked it.”
“Like it?! I love it!” Fengi cheers, Essy giving an appreciative nod to Ray before looking to Lin.
“Sooo?”
“It’s very good… Do you think we could try and cool it down a little? Imagine this cold.”
“It is often served cold, yes,” Ray confirmed, nodding her assent.
“I’ll go get the powder!” Saph called out, getting up. “I have got to try that.”
__________________________________________________________________________________
The strange ethereal world that had seemed so all-consuming started to quickly fade. Holes grew as light and reality started seeping in, sounds and noise starting to build around him. “Oom-Tom… Tom, are you okay?” came the familiar voice of Jacky as his eyes shot open and he blinked a few times as he returned to reality proper.
“Yeah yeah, I’m here… That is trippy, but hey, I think it worked.”
“How many fingers?” Jacky questioned, holding up her hand.
“4. Clear as day.”
“Pheeew. Okay look around, anything strange?”
Tom obeyed, sitting up a bit straighter and glancing about the room. “Nnnnn, nope all good. Just like last time I used one of these.”
“Right, good. Now what did she say?”
“Oh a bunch of stuff… mostly we chatted a bit about how she’s going a touch mad. Even Glazz thinks she’s falling apart at the seams apparently. She was also not happy I wanted a break.”
“Oh don’t tell me you have to do this every day from now on?”
“I said she had 3 days to get ready to try again. Hopefully she’ll have her case worked out by then.”
“Here’s to hoping… also how is your head? Does it hurt?”
“A bit, it’ll go away I’m sure.”
“Right,” Jacky replied, looking at him skeptically. “If it gets worse, tell me. But dinner was served a while ago I think. And I’m hungry.”
“Me too, let’s go.”
__________________________________________________________________________________
Well then, Joelina got her chat. She seems fine... I am sure she will continue to be a steadfast ally, within the walls of the inquisition for many weeks to co- I mean years, definetly years.
As always I hope you enjoyed the chapter, if not you know who to blame. I promise I won't cry to much if you tell me what was wrong... I promise.
Not really any news, other than fuck me I'm a busy boi, luckily I found the time to keep up with the writing yet, hopefully things will quet down soon so I can get back to begin a bit further ahead.
Untill next time, take care
Wiki and Art Gallery If you can't remember who someone is, want to read any of the side stories of fanfiction, or you just wanna watch some of the cool art that's been made for the story. Patreon If you want to help get more cool shit made consider joining the Patreon, you also get chapters two weeks ahead of time. HoH Subreddit if you want more stories from the HoH universe or are interested in writing something for this funny little world. Discord if you wanna have a chat about the story or just hang out First Previous

I'm not the kind of person who can manage an all-day park experience (health issues), so when I go to USJ I usually do the Twilight Pass and stay 4-5 hours at most. However, my brother is coming to visit and he's interested in just checking out Nintendo Land. I understand that it needs a special timed entry into the park and I'm not sure if that's compatible with the Twilight Pass or not.
We'd be looking to go next week, on a weekday, maybe Wednesday or Thursday. Maybe one or two rides and just walking around checking out the space for the rest of it.
Does anyone have any insight on whether you can get the Nintendo entry ticket while using Twilight Pass or is it absolutely necessary to buy a full day? Can I get a Nintendo entry online or at a combini beforehand, and just show up at the park when we reach the entry time?
I usually buy at the park, but I was thinking to pre-buy this time so that we could better lay out our plans, but I don't even see the Twilight Pass on the ticket list for pre-purchase. Would welcome any advice you can give. :)

EDIT: "Got an extra $140 million?"
Let's review: ISD 709 says it wants "$5.2 million annually" to give every child a Chromebook. Sounds pretty good.
But no one asked for a set amount. They asked for a percentage of the property taxes, seemingly just over 3%. In the first year, that would be $5.29 million. Rounding 5.29 down to 5.2 should already alert us to what we are dealing with.
That amount would go up each year with the assessed value of our homes. Even if they only increased 3% per year, the total after ten years would be $59.6 million. Is ISD 709 "asking for" $5.2 million but actually taking more like $60 million? Well, wait! There's more.
The following paragraph, from the ISD 709 Future Forward web page, seems to be a flat lie. "If approved by voters, the capital projects levy would automatically expire after 10 years and cannot be renewed without voter authorization." Unless I am missing something, that statement is completely false.
The new subdivision "9b" that was added to Section 126C.17 of the Minnesota Statutes last May states that the school board may renew such a referendum "by board action." That means the entire ten year plan can be renewed without even asking us (but only once).
So, it seems that ISD 709 would get $139.7 million dollars (even at only 3% growth in home values). That's more than its entire 2024 General Fund of $136 million, and quite different from the $5.2 million figure that is being quoted over and over.
This request is described on the Future Forward website as a "Capital Projects Levy for Technology Improvements," presumably under "Section 123B.63 - Capital project levy referendum." That would suggest that this money is being used to buy assets that have real value (capital). That's why all property types must "chip in" on capital projects, while operating levies are only put upon individual homes and businesses.
However, according to the ISD 709 web site, it will only spend about a quarter (26%) of that money on learning technology (and digital curriculum, which perhaps means lesson plans?). Plans include spending 17% on staff, 15% on staff training, and 10% on "program maintenance." How could any of that be considered a capital project?
According to subdivision 3, a capital funding request must "state the estimated total cost of the project, state whether the project has received a positive or negative review and comment from the commissioner, state the maximum amount of the capital project levy as a percentage of net tax capacity ..." among other requirements. Has that been done?
This all seems to be a "cross-subsidy," where new funds are used to pay for something that used to come out of the General Fund. This frees up the money in the General Fund for ISD 709 to spend however it thinks best - without any input from us. So, here's my question: Why not just be honest and ask us to fund whatever it is that ISD 709 is planning to fund with that money?? Is it because we would not approve of that, while a Chromebook on every desk is an easy sell?
Please vote NO again.

I met him when his children were 7 and 8. Both traumatized because their mother just up and left them home alone for 3 weeks to go on a bender when their father was abroad working(amongst other things. When he came home, they were nearly starved. That was the last time they saw her in 11 years. When I met them I was met by two very broken children that acted more like toddlers. I worked with them for 10 years. Spent so many nights sitting beside them holding their hands while sleeping because they were scared I would leave them. I had to teach them everything from potty training to bathing to brushing teeth. I insisted that they would get assistance in school. I loved them with all my heart and they called me mum. Now the older is in premed and the younger is planning a sabbatical to travel the world. I never got anything for mother’s day and it was fine. I never set great store by these types of celebrations but for the past year they have been in contact with their mum. They have tracked her down and a relationship grew. I don’t know if she is happy to have them in her life again but they are. Yesterday, they shared a picture on instagram with their mum. They’ve gotten her flowers and taken her out for brunch. I don’t know why I broke down crying. I was happy for them that they are in good terms with their mum but I just realized that I never got anything from them on mother’s day. Ever.
I feel empty and I want to leave. How awful is that? How awful am I who always thought that I didn’t want or expected anything in return and yet here I am asking why they never saw me as a mum?

Hey! I am currently in my senior year of college in early education k-3 and double majoring special needs K-12. I start student teaching next year (winter of 2025) and then I have another year of student teaching for special needs I am predicted to graduate in the next 2 years or less. I work as an assistant preschool teacher in a daycare and have been in many school placements at schools for my degree.
In classes we've made lists of books, need, and ideas for our classrooms. A few months ago my lead teacher at my daycare left suddenly and took lots of classroom materials with. I filled in with a few cheap pieces like some kids books I really wanted, quick and easy matching games, puzzles, and a few other things for me (my own laminator, etc). Which I plan to take when I leave.
With my student teaching coming up next winter I really don't want graduation to sneak up on me and not have anything for applying at schools or items for my first classroom wherever that may be! I have already started saving some worksheets i've laminated from classes as well as lesson plan prompts I have done (I know everyone says they never use them but just encase). I don't want to be preparing stuff that won't be used. College tends to tell education majors to basically store junk tbh...
My question is for recent graduates or current teachers what you felt was an immediate need for your first year classroom, or applying to schools? I am fortunate enough to live at home and not pay excessive amounts in tuition so I have the occasional money to spend aside with having plenty of savings and the room to store things. I work a lot next to school so I wanted to take the time this summer while I have no classes to prepare as much as I can!
Thanks!

Hey all, I’ve been getting spammed with messages from people asking me for an update on my last two posts (Original and Update) and wow do I have some really crazy developments to report!
If you missed those two posts, on the high rise construction site adjacent to my building, a worker was showing me a pentagon with his arms, then flashing me with five fingers repeatedly one day, and then showing me a rectangle and flashing four the next. On both days he was later joined by several other workers. Commenters who worked in construction told me I was being messed with, which I agreed with at the time and tried to write it off as such.
As many commenters predicted, the next day was more of the same, except the construction worker was showing me a triangle with his arms (which looked just like the pentagon but with locked elbows) then three fingers. I was pretty sick of it as that point, so I tried not to look out the window, but it became very difficult not to when out of the corner of my eye I saw what seemed to be half of construction crew doing the triangle at me and showing me three. At that point, idk what came over me, but I called the police and told them that I was feeling threatened and harassed by the workers because they were distracting me and counting down to lord knows what.
I instantly regretted that because I just called the police on a bunch of strange men hell bent on bothering me, and they knew exactly where I worked, what parking lot I parked in, etc. So I didn’t even stick around to see what happened. I told my boss I was feeling very ill and asked if I could work from home the rest of the day, then left.
I became pretty paranoid that I stayed home the rest of the week too. I could barely sleep due to intense anxiety about going back to work and when I did, I was having crazy nightmares. Then I had a full on psychotic panic attack on Saturday when I got a text from an unknown number with just the number “1” and an accompanying call with a robot voice saying “1” and hanging up. I ran out the house and to a friends place and crashed there.
The next day I got a surprise call from my long distance boyfriend asking to have dinner that night, saying he got a last second assignment in my city and was about to fly in. It should have clicked then, but I was sleepless and still anxious as fuck. I was too scared to drive so my friend gave me a lift. As we turned the corner, I saw that in front of the restaurant, there were a bunch of construction workers holding their hands in a “zero.” I saw that and immediately told my friend to drive away. And get us back home. On the way home I was having the most intense heart palpitations I’ve ever had, and after a bit I felt the entire left side of my body going numb. I was unable to lift my arm and was convinced I was having a stroke so I told my friend to get us to the hospital.
As we were pulling into the hospital, my boyfriend called and asked where I was. I tried to explain as best as I could, and then told him I was going to the hospital. He started apologizing which confused me so I asked what he was apologizing for and he said that he was the one behind the construction workers showing me a countdown of shapes. He drove to the hospital to meet up with me and explained everything— He was offered a job in my city and was going to take it and move here, so he was ready to propose. I had been telling him recently that I was really bored at work and was obsessed with watching the construction workers, and so he on his last trip he had apparently visited the site and worked out a deal with the workers and offered them a couple thousand dollars to show a countdown to earliest day he could get here so he could propose that night.
So that’s the resolution to that mystery. The lesson here is to not date a crazy romantic who forgets that his partner has a history of anxiety and paranoia. I’m okay now, but I told him he’s going to have to find a way to propose that doesn’t send me to the hospital if he wants to cuff it.
I return to work tomorrow and aim to not look out that window once.