Funny teacher retirement ideas

This is a 18+ discord server set in a superpowered academy with some dark secrets. The colorful cast of characters leaves a lot of room for whatever ideas you might have for your own, student or teacher! Be it a war vet nurse, or a bunny boi thief student, or even a former rock star trying to find new insperation as a teacher! all characters of all backgrounds are welcome to Magna!
Although primarily a modern day slice of life, the server does encourage individual plotlines based on your background leading to a web of interconnected stories through character interactions and backgrounds. There is no main character so no matter what your character will get their time to shine! Smut is allowed and encouraged as well! It's a college after all and college students are young and horny.
There’s no level of experience for your writing required either! Just on a personal note, this server is what got me into rp myself. It's been slowly raising in how active it is and at this point we have a happy little community that's always looking for and happy to accept new people into our group. I looks forward to seeing you there!

This is a 18+ discord server set in a superpowered academy with some dark secrets. The colorful cast of characters leaves a lot of room for whatever ideas you might have for your own, student or teacher! Be it a femboy war vet nurse, or a bunny boi thief student, or even a former rock star trying to find new inspiration as a teacher! all characters of all backgrounds are welcome to Magna!
Although primarily a modern day slice of life, the server does encourage individual plotlines based on your background leading to a web of interconnected stories through character interactions and backgrounds. There is no main character so no matter what your character will get their time to shine! Smut is allowed and encouraged as well! It's a college after all and college students are college students.
There’s no level of experience for your writing required either! Just on a personal note, this server is what got me into rp in general. It's had it's ups and downs but as a community we've worked hard to push through and try to be an inviting space for any and all who give us the same respect. There's no community I've ever gotten so close to and I really hope you join our ranks and our community, as it'd be great to meet you and have you join us! Dm me if you're interested and we'll see about getting you an invite :3

This is a 18+ discord server set in a superpowered academy with some dark secrets. The colorful cast of characters leaves a lot of room for whatever ideas you might have for your own, student or teacher! Be it a war vet nurse, or a bunny boi thief student, or even a former rock star trying to find new insperation as a teacher! all characters of all backgrounds are welcome to Magna!
Although primarily a modern day slice of life, the server does encourage individual plotlines based on your background leading to a web of interconnected stories through character interactions and backgrounds. There is no main character so no matter what your character will get their time to shine! Smut is allowed and encouraged as well! It's a college after all and college students are young and horny.
The lore behind the world is relatively simple. The world has developed technologically to the point where humanity is able to give individuals artificial powers. Magna, which was originally a testing ground for those powers, has been converted into essentially a soverign city state of a school for those who have powers to get new bginnings and learn how to use their abilities properly. Most other lore is based on character backstories to expand the world, with very limited relevant lore outside of what Magna is and why it exists giving plenty of freedom for any backstory desiered!
There’s no level of experience for your writing required either! Just on a personal note, this server is what got me intok rp myself. It’s slowly dying but we just need a few more active members to bring it back!
invite link: https://discord.gg/3mQVvBRJ
No dice rolling needed :3

TL;DR (18m) I was planning on going to college for game development but I don't think I want a career in that. I just want to do my own thing and hopefully get big. Biology seems cool.
I want to be an independent game developer. I have my own game idea and I'm really passionate about it. I’d make it even if I couldn’t make money off of it. It has a bunch of creatures based on real life biology, it's called speculative evolution. Kinda like Subnautica or James Cameron’s Avatar. Like alien animals and aren’t just monsters. I animate all the characters and creatures and want the game to have a hand drawn style like Hollow Knight.
Due to my interest in video games and digital arts / animation, I applied to an art school with a game design major, within walking distance from my high school. I visited it during my art classes and found the environment inviting. There were nice studio spaces and the students there looked really fun to be around. The Game Design professor was really nice to listen to during the Open House. All these together, alongside transportation issues led me to tunnel vision into this school. When I got the financial aid package, I started rethinking the idea of going. I assumed it would cover most of the cost since my family is low income and I have a lot of siblings. The school seems really nice but I don’t want to have 100K in student loans.
I didn’t apply anywhere else until recently. This year's FAFSA was delayed by a lot which made applying to other schools a bit tricky. I got accepted into a state school which offers more stuff too.
All the game developer layoffs and crunch time stuff, I don’t really think I want to do that. I of course want to make my own game. Like alone, in an apartment or my own little studio space or something. Being able to be a concept artist would be awesome, but it’s like super competitive and there’s also AI image generation. (eww I hate that) It’s scary good now, imagine how good it’ll be in 4 years when I graduate. Working on other people’s games would be cool, I guess. That’s not why I want to learn this stuff. I just want to do my own thing
Also looking at the art college’s class lineup, they don’t have anything not related to art. I like biology, paleontology and other earth sciences because I do lots of worldbuilding. I don’t get bored in stem classes like I imagine a lot of art school students do.
I’ve been thinking about a lot of other careers.
Dental Hygienists seem to make a lot of dollars without flexible hours, but I’ve also heard they have wrist pain which would make it really hard to draw.
Software Engineering is alright. Like I can tolerate it, but without the lens of video games, I don’t really care for it. The coding part of video games is not my spark, it’s more the artistic creative side. Also I hear that’s like the most overcrowded major everywhere. I know people who love coding like how I love paleontology, just researching it for fun.
Being a TV show animator seems really similar to being in a game developer studio. I also think I’d have to move to California or something. I don’t really want to move that far away.
Architecture seems kinda cool. I just heard you have to love it because you work overtime a lot and would get paid more for your effort in other fields.
Having some sort of biology job would be really cool. I’m not sure exactly what they do though. Again I saw you have to love it because it’s hard to find a job without a masters degree.
My art teacher is really proud of my work so far and it makes me happy. I will say though, considering something else as a career has made thinking about it so much less stressful. It can just be something cool I do and if it gets big, I don’t have to work anymore. Yahoo. I could also put hobbyist instead of professional in my bio, which looks cooler to me.
Extra:
Working a trade sounds sucky because I’ve helped my friend at his family business at a warehouse once. It was okay but I don’t want to do that for a living. Lifting heavy stuff and getting kinda hurt. No thanks.
Also I’m aware I simplify a bit when talking about competition and stuff. The idea is that entry level jobs would be hard to get and those don’t really pay that well and I don’t want to feel like I wasted a college degree. I could be being dumb about AI image generation but any professional art people can let me know.
You can read about my student loan worries here here
And I can link to my itch.io for my 1 minute game prototypes if anyone is interested. My 2D Platformers with Krita Animations
Anyway what I’m asking for is your thoughts because I’m not knowledgeable here. Anyone with a biology degree, experience in the jobs I listed or whatever else (I don’t know, it’s why I am asking)

I happened to watch this today. I feel like not only Mica’s family but all those who deeply care about justice for Mica, would appreciate this clip in the event they haven’t seen it already.
We Don’t See Grief: Body Language Expert on Mica Miller’s Pastor Husband -
https://youtu.be/gTLAGOTcxo0?si=AhUoOb4hjSkQTMk2
When I watched the memorial psycho JP put on, I found it not surprising how he did not allow anyone other than that other pastor to speak about beautiful memories about her. All “controlled” from an out of control person. But also, watching it, it just felt so incredibly “off.” Listening to this link helped me understand WHY. It’s weird all the things we as humans pick up on that we can’t articulate like this body language expert but just sense it, ie gut knowings. I pray everyday for Mica, Mica’s family, and ALL those victims of JP Miller and the ring leader his father. False prophets.
Additionally, these false prophets are a liability to the Christian faith. It’s what makes people run from the Bible. But like anything in life, those that truly are in Christ trust the process of life.
There was a gentlemen on the Solid Rock that shared John 2:2-22. WOW. An important read for all Christians.
Hugs.
“False Teachers and Their Destruction
2 But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. 3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.
4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell,[a] putting them in chains of darkness[b] to be held for judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; 6 if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless 8 (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)— 9 if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. 10 This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the flesh[c] and despise authority.
Bold and arrogant, they are not afraid to heap abuse on celestial beings; 11 yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not heap abuse on such beings when bringing judgment on them from[d] the Lord. 12 But these people blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like animals they too will perish.
13 They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you.[e] 14 With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed—an accursed brood! 15 They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Bezer,[f] who loved the wages of wickedness. 16 But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey—an animal without speech—who spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.
17 These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. 18 For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. 19 They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.” 20 If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. 21 It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. 22 Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,”[g] and, “A sow that is washed returns to her wallowing in the mud.”

I'm self-taught in programming. Not super well but I can make some things. I thought it would be a good idea to get to grips with data structures and algorithms.
I followed two courses in PluralSight by Robert Horvick which was mostly data structures. I didn't have issues with that but I wanted more to do with algorithms. So I signed up for Coursera's Princeton Algorithms course. It's not going well. I've been taking notes and I can follow as the teacher is talking and going through slides and examples but we get to the quizzes and projects and I don't have a clue.....
Here were the last quiz questions:
1) Question 1
Social network connectivity. Given a social network containing 𝑛n members and a log file containing 𝑚m timestamps at which times pairs of members formed friendships, design an algorithm to determine the earliest time at which all members are connected (i.e., every member is a friend of a friend of a friend ... of a friend). Assume that the log file is sorted by timestamp and that friendship is an equivalence relation. The running time of your algorithm should be 𝑚log⁡𝑛mlogn or better and use extra space proportional to 𝑛n.
2) Union-find with specific canonical element. Add a method 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑑()find() to the union-find data type so that 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑑(𝑖)find(i) returns the largest element in the connected component containing 𝑖i. The operations, 𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑜𝑛()union(), 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑()connected(), and 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑑()find() should all take logarithmic time or better.
For example, if one of the connected components is {1,2,6,9} then the 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑑()find() method should return 9 for each of the four elements in the connected components.
3) Question 3
Successor with delete. Given a set of 𝑛n integers 𝑆={0,1,...,𝑛−1}S={0,1,...,n−1} and a sequence of requests of the following form:

• Remove 𝑥x from 𝑆S
• Find the successor of 𝑥x: the smallest 𝑦y in 𝑆S such that 𝑦≥𝑥y≥x.

design a data type so that all operations (except construction) take logarithmic time or better in the worst case.
and here's the project description:
https://coursera.cs.princeton.edu/algs4/assignments/percolation/specification.php
I feel very out of my depth. It's been a long time since I've done any math. Last time was high school in precalc. I wasn't bad by any means I got straight A's but I was nowhere near the best either.
It also doesn't help this course is in Java. I know JS and C# mostly and I'm intimidated doing these projects in Java.
I really want to get good at this but I feel like I'm drowning. Does anyone have recommendations on courses or videos that might be a little more beginner friendly? For all I know, this course might be beginner friendly and I'm just garbage.
I've been really low lately. I got a useless degree and I'm probably never going to get anywhere if I can't do this...I feel like I messed up my life

My girlfriend wants us to buy at least 1 house when married, if not multiple houses. I think buying houses is a bad idea. We've discussed this issue for a very long time and can't seem to see eye to eye.
My argument is that the era of cheap housing has ended, property taxes are high (as high as paying apartment rent itself), mortgages are risky to take on in an era of inflation and bad economy, and that the $500,000 we spend on a house would be much better spent on investments that would generate passive income and let us retire early (let alone, say, $900,000 for two houses). On top of that, houses can cost a fortune if something goes wrong and insurance won't cover, require a lot of maintenance, whereas if you rent, then it's the leasing complex that has to perform maintenance. (I saw this firsthand when my parents' house suffered a water leak that had massive repercussions over a long period of time.) Finally, given how unbearably hot Texas is (we had a heat wave last summer that got as hot as 113 degrees one August afternoon,) I'm not sure at all this is where we should settle down longterm - and a house would bind us to a location.
She has her heart absolutely dead-set on us buying one house or multiple houses when married. Nothing I say can seem to make any difference. I am also listening with an open mind as well, but at the end of the day it still seems to me that the cons of buying houses outweigh the pros. What should we do?
At this point, she is so insistent that I'm thinking of telling her, "If you truly insist, then we can buy a house because I know you'll never be happy without one, but I must make it clear that I disapprove and don't think it's a good idea. I'll go along just so you'll be satisfied."
TL;DR; my girlfriend is adamant that we buy a house or multiple houses; I feel equally adamant that we should not buy a house.

I'm recently out of work and I didn't exactly have much of a rainy day fun to support me while I'm looking for a new job. I can basically survive until July without a new source of income as of now. In short,
Debts (~80-81k):

• ~28k Auto Loan (2.49%)
• ~30k Student Loan (5.05%)
• ~8.4k Personal Loan (14.99%)
• ~3.2k Personal Loan (6.63%)
• ~8.2k 401k Loan that needs to be repaid before the end of May or else it's treated as a distribution
• ~2.5k Credit Cards (varying APR but all high)

Assets (~110-115k):

• 401k from 1st Job: ~21k
• 401k from 2nd Job (had the loan taken out): ~47k
• Checking/Cash: ~4.5k
• The state of Pennsylvania still owes me about 6k in tax refunds that I'm working on getting back at the moment
• My Toyota is supposedly worth ~34-36k right now but I'm still paying it off. Don't want to entertain selling this vehicle or the contract unless I'm in dire circumstances.

Minimum Monthly Obligations ($3,430):

• Rent & Utilities: $1,100
• Auto & Insurance: $789 + $191 = $980
• Loans: $700
• Subscriptions: $50
• Grocery/Gas/Other: $600

If I get my tax refunds back from PA in a timely enough manner, I've basically got about 10k to work with and burn until I have to have a new source of income. I've got a few ideas for stop gap jobs to extend my unemployed period until I get a new offer worth taking, but I guess my main concern right now is I want to take out a personal loan to pay back the 8.2k remaining on my loan from my 401k that I had out and I'm wondering if that's a bad idea for a reason I'm not seeing.
As I understand it at the moment, the penalty and taxes on 8.2k treated as a distribution is going to be closer to 3k which will exceed the interest I would probably pay on a personal loan that I could pay it off with. Not to mention the extra interest that 401k would accrue in the meantime with the loan paid back sitting in a target retirement fund.
Anyway, I'm also curious as to what someone who is more well versed in personal finance has to say about how I should approach my situation besides the obvious--getting a new job to pay my bills. Please let me know!

My entire town stood by as I was groomed. I was 14 and he was 22 but because he was funny and attractive nobody cared. We were the talk of the town for so long because of the dramatics of our "relationship" broadcasted on his popular snapchat channel. He made my peers love him and alienate me so I'd be all his. Because of him I lost out on all of highschool. I didn't have friends, never got to go out and didn't graduate because I was with him. He had me around his finger for 6 years. Contantly blackmailing me, he had a huge online following he would post horrible things about me to whenever I did something wrong or tried to leave. He was a manipulative monster behind closed doors. I can't even remember most of the horrible thing he did to me. The last year together he became a drug addict and almost killed me. That was my wake up call. I tired to leave and he stalked and threatened me, 200 calls a day on burners and posted horrible inappropriate photos of me. All of this was extremely public thanks to him. I had to move away to get away. I'm 24 now and still have nightmares most nights, I think about him everyday still, I cry so much. I cry so much. I feel so invalidated by everyone. I can't stand that everyone watched my abuse, my parents, teachers, therapist, cops. Sure karma might have gotten him a little with the drug addict stuff but I heard he's doing okay now unfortunately. He got away with all of this and I'm still broken every single day. To top it off a few years ago he messaged me on a new account to tell me how his therapist said it would be good for him to apologize to me (not for the right things) and said he still loves me, complete narcissist. Trigger homicidal rage. I can't get away from the invalidating feelings, nightmares, flashbacks. There's nobody in my life I can talk to about this so here you go Redd.

You know what the best part is about playing Engineer in Team Fortress 2? You get to watch how angry everyone gets when they get shot by your sentry guns. Me and my best friend Jose both main Engineer, and can confirm that the best way to spend your Friday nights after school is to set up a sentry and get ready for the rage. There’s been matches where we haven’t even used our actual guns even once, but racked up lots of kills just because of the sentries.
One day Jose called me up with an idea that was either going to be the stupidest thing ever or the smartest thing ever. He wanted to fill an entire team with only Engineers and watch the chaos unfold. I couldn’t stop laughing at the mental image in my head and agreed with the plan. I joined a Discord server with everyone else on the team.
I convinced my cousin Matthew to join, and he in turn brought along his little brother Zack. According to Matthew, it took quite a bit of convincing because Zack was a Scout main who couldn’t stand Engineers. He eventually got through to his little brother by promising him a Steam gift card. I even got their dad Graham to play along (yes, I have an uncle who plays TF2. How cool is that?). Jose enlisted his friends, who turned into friends of friends and soon enough we had a team of 16 Engineers.
To say that we caused chaos that night was an absolute understatement. As soon as we joined the game the text chat was flooded with messages from the other team wondering what the hell was going on. And they only got worse from that point on. We surrounded our control points with a ring of sentries that people just kept running into. I saw keyboard smashes and heard other teen boys’ voices crack in rage and many, many words that I personally don’t care to repeat here.
The most skilled Engineer was this guy named Craig, who was a friend of one of Jose’s friends. Not only was he the main person capturing the enemy control points with some very strategically placed teleporters, but he was also really friendly and encouraging to all of us. I didn’t know what he looked like, but from his voice it sounded like he was in his early 20s.
Me and Craig started to chat more and more on Discord. He was a super nice guy who was also really fun to talk with. He took time out of his day to teach me how to be an even better Engineer player. Whenever someone started dissing me in the voice chat, he firmly told them to leave me alone. After seeing my fair share of toxicity in the TF2 community, it was nice to know that this complete stranger was looking out for me.
This whole Team Engineer thing became a weekly tradition for us on Friday nights. It was something everyone could look forward to after work or school. One time after everyone logged off and said their goodbyes, Craig sent a message a few hours later in our Discord:
“You guys gotta check this out. I found the weirdest server ever. It’s literally Engineer heaven. Meet me at vl_sentry.”
I was still in the mood to play and I could stay up late tonight, so I hopped back on TF2. I saw that Jose, Graham and this other girl we played with named Lynn were also online. I found vl_sentry and connected to the server. The map was called Valley of the Sentries and it was created by Valve.
It took my computer a little bit to process the map, and it took me even longer than that to process what I was seeing.
The map looked like a chessboard with 3D-sculpted hills. The sky was just pure white. Not even white walls, just the color white. Every square had a blue sentry on it and there were about 4 or 5 other Engineers jumping around, spamming their voice lines. That’s when I realized that we were the only ones there, and there was no red team.
“Hey Sean, glad you could make it :)” Craig said in the text chat. “What the hell is this?” I asked. He told me that this was a server that one of his friends showed him. The friend said he was introduced to the map by a friend of his who knew someone who worked at Valve. Craig then went on to explain that apparently Valley of the Sentries was an experiment to test the limits of the sentry guns and their effect on the servers. Rumor has it that the map is infinite.
“Check this out.” said Jose. He switched to Heavy and immediately got shot down. All of the sentries turned towards him. There were so many of them that it made the game lag a ton. He respawned as Engineer and the sentries just kept on spinning.
“WTF?” I typed. “We tried it with all the other classes and it does the same thing.” said Craig. “It ignores Engineers, but shoots everyone else.” Lynn added. “And that’s why we’re the best class. Engineer power!” Graham joked.
I asked what would happen if you were to play as Spy and sap one of the sentries. “I tried, but you gotta have a godly reaction time to activate it.” said Jose. As soon as he said “godly reaction time”, I knew I had to try it out just for the bragging rights.
Respawn. Shot down. Respawn. Shot down. Respawn. Shot down.
Yeah, I did not have a godly reaction time. The others kept spamming “lol” in the chat each time I failed. I got annoyed pretty quickly and stopped trying. Then out of nowhere, all the sentries turned away from me and started firing at someone. I turned around and all five of us were still standing there. I looked at the top bar that shows how many characters were in the game. There were only five Engineers and they were all on the same team. So what the hell were the sentries targeting?
I started to walk in the direction that the sentries were facing and Jose followed me too. We moved really slow, not only because of the sentries on every square but also the uphill climbs. It was just us two in the chat for a while, talking about seeing each other back at school on Monday while we made our slow walk across the map. Then our conversation was interrupted by a chat message from Lynn.
“Why is there a man in the sky?”
Me and Jose tried to get to Lynn to see what she was talking about as fast as possible, but we moved like snails. To get back to the spawn point, we both switched classes, instantly died and respawned as Engineers. I don’t think we respawned in the same place we started from. I don’t even know where we respawned. There were no landmarks or notable things to help you find your way. Just hills, valleys, and sentries.
I asked Lynn where she was and she just told me she was with Graham and Craig. Only that wasn’t very helpful because we didn’t know where they were either. We stood there, stumped for a minute and a half until Jose got an idea. He said that she should just switch classes and respawn, because then all of the sentries would point toward her and we could follow them all the way back to her. She made the switch, got shot down, and we instantly knew where to find her.
We finally got close enough to kind of make out the vague shape of a few Engineers over the non-existent horizon. Me and Jose were relieved, until all the sentries pointed to our right. I swiveled around and saw them open fire on…nothing. I checked with Jose to see if he caught something I didn’t, but he also didn’t see what they were shooting at. I decided that it wasn’t that important and continued to walk towards the rest of the group.
We met up with Lynn, Craig and Graham, disappointed that we made that trek all for nothing. Even though we were all together now, it just felt so lonely. The only sound coming from my computer was the constant beeping of the sentries in perfect sync. I don’t know why, but it made me so uneasy. I attempted to break the silence by going to the voice lines and playing the iconic Engineer “Nope” soundbite. It echoed across the checkered land with no response.
It was about 12:30 AM at this point and I was starting to feel more and more unsettled with each passing minute. There was just something about this black and white world that I felt creeped out by. Before Craig invited us to come over, there was no one else on the server. Who would even want to play on this map, anyways? It’s so unfairly balanced that only one class can survive. Movement speed was super slow, and you can’t even really do anything except watch the sentries turn and turn and turn forever. It was like hypnosis, except I didn’t feel sleepy or relaxed at all.
Speaking of being sleepy, Jose said he was getting tired and was going to be logging off. We all said goodbye to him and continued chatting amongst ourselves. It sounds stupid, but my stomach dropped when I saw the fifth Engineer portrait disappear. One less person to talk to. One less person to keep myself from wondering what else was out here. I could have sworn that after he left, the beeping got louder.
“So is this map actually infinite?” asked Graham. “Only one way to find out.” Craig said. “Just keep on walking and see if it goes on forever.” “Why don’t you just fire a shotgun and see how far it goes?” Lynn suggested.
I took out the shotgun and fired. The bullet flew off into the white distance and disappeared.
Then I heard the distinct sound of someone getting shot.
A message appeared in the chat, from someone named sentry_check_pattern.
“sentry_check_pattern: stop that”
Once again I looked at the top bar. It just showed four blue Engineers. That meant we were the only ones on the server. Or so we thought.
The chat was flooded with our confusion, almost as if everyone realized at the same time that something wasn’t right. None of us moved an inch.
“What even is this place?” I asked, hoping that the mysterious user would provide me with an answer. “Must be Engineer heaven.” said Graham.
“sentry_check_pattern: more like my personal hell”
This was the moment that made me trust my intuition. I knew there was a reason why I found this map so creepy. I wanted to leave the server, but there was just one thing keeping me back- my own curiosity. My wish to unveil the mysteries of the Valley of the Sentries.
“Okay this is really freaking me out. See ya guys.” said Lynn before she left the server. The fourth Engineer’s portrait disappeared from the top bar.
No no no, please. Please don’t go. Don’t leave us. I wouldn’t want to be alone here. Now there’s just three of us, and I really hope that number doesn’t go down anymore. When the others were here, this was just a weird TF2 map that we were exploring together as friends. And now it feels like we’re trapped in this infinite world, but we aren’t alone. The only problem is we don’t know what else is here.
I shuddered, imagining Craig and Graham ditching me and leaving me all alone in the Valley of the Sentries. Just me and whoever- no, whatever was talking to us.
“sentry_check_pattern: you don’t know how good you have it
you can leave at any time
i can’t”
This terrified me. What a horrible thought, never being able to leave this place. But of course, no one could really be trapped here. It’s a Team Fortress 2 server. You can just exit the game and shut your computer. No one could be trapped in a video game.
But if you think about it, aren’t the characters themselves trapped? They can’t leave the game. They’re characters. They don’t even know they’re in a game. You or the computer controls all their actions. They don’t have free will. And if you’re bad at the game, they’ll just keep dying over and over again.
Wait, why was I thinking about this?
I carefully considered what I wanted to say next in the chat. Whatever I said could either answer all my burning questions or leave me asking more. But sentry_check_pattern talked first.
“sentry_check_pattern: i was made for one purpose
to die over and over again”
Oh my god. It was like this person read my mind and knew exactly what I was thinking about. Who or what was I talking to? I turned all the way around to make sure that no one else was there. It was just the two blue Engineers standing behind me. Just Graham and Craig. And that man with the checkered skin.
Startled, I asked my friends if they saw what I saw. It took them a second, but both of them confirmed that yes, there was indeed something else there. A basic male model with the same chessboard texture as the map. Graham immediately started to shoot at him. Nothing. It just went straight through him.
“sentry_check_pattern: you can’t kill what’s already been killed millions of times over
valve made that mistake too
every company has that one failed project they don’t talk about
and that’s me”
Whoever was behind this weird account was talking crazy. The Team Fortress 2 developers were very open about everything like fixing their glitches and bugs. They always posted things on the official blog about the development process. They’re so open about their failures and always promise to fix them.
“Stop with the weird stuff. We just wanted to know what the deal is with this server and the weird chess guy. Do you know anything about it?” Graham asked in the text chat.
“sentry_check_pattern: know anything?
you’re not very bright, graham
none of you are
do you not realize where you are and what you’re talking to”
Something about the way sentry_check_pattern used Graham’s name gave me goosebumps. I didn’t know what I was talking to. I didn’t even think I wanted to know at this point.
“sentry_check_pattern: this is one of valve’s test servers
i’m the texture they use to check if the sentries work
read between the lines”
“Quiet, NPC.” Craig said. I laughed a little bit to fight off the awkward tension. Then I reminded myself that I was talking to a video game character, no- not even a character. A blank character model. A texture.
“sentry_check_pattern: just because i’m a character model doesn’t mean i can’t feel pain
open fire”
The sentries all swiveled around to face the man and shot at him. He kept falling to the ground, turning white and standing back up in the same position.
“sentry_check_pattern: cease fire”
All of the sentries stopped shooting and just went back to spinning around, their beeps echoing in the air.
“sentry_check_pattern: ready to see what i’ve been through for over a decade?
open fire”
Before any of us could react, the sentries opened fire on Craig all at once. He kept dying, but he didn’t explode the way you’re supposed to when you die in TF2. He just dropped to the floor, turned white, and respawned over and over again. There was no death scream. I tried to type something else in the chat but the game lagged so much that my typing just ended up as a string of random letters that meant nothing. Craig tried to type something out too. It just ended up as “wwwwwwwwwwthisishowitfeelswwwwwwwww” Then the game crashed and my computer shut down.
I hyperventilated. Then I laughed at myself for hyperventilating over a stupid computer game. It was Team Fortress 2 for god’s sake. That game with all the memes and goofy jokes. Stupid, stupid Sean. Scared of a character model. Jose would never let me live it down. I just laughed and laughed to push the fear away.
I closed my laptop and took out my phone to rewatch all of my favorite TF2 animations for the millionth time. As if they weren’t already the funniest things in the world, I forced myself to laugh even harder than usual. Every time I saw the Engineer, I couldn’t help but look at the reflection in his goggles. The reflection of an endless map of black and white squares.
Thankfully, nothing bad happened to my game, account or laptop. The next day I just went right back to playing and enjoying the rage coming from all the people who ran right into my sentries.
Team Engineer was still a thing, but it was never really the same. We played together a lot less frequently. It was still a lot of fun, but I felt a change that I couldn’t really describe.
We found out that Craig had lost all progress on his TF2 account. Everyone gifted him all his favorite cosmetics and we all pooled our money together to get him a Steam gift card. He video called us, crying at our kindness. It was the first time I ever even saw his face. He was a lot older than most of us. If I had to guess an age, I’d say somewhere around 30. He had black bangs and was wearing a TF2 shirt. His room was dark, only lit by his glowing computer screen. He thanked us repeatedly and even tried to return the gift card, but we were all adamant that he should keep it.
Speaking of Craig, we still kept in touch but he didn’t talk to me as much anymore. Any time I tried to ask him about vl_sentry, he ignored me for a few days.
The other day, I got some postcards from my cousin Matthew. He was very academic and happened to be studying at a private high school about 9 hours away from where I live. All of his postcards were pictures of him making funny faces with all his friends at favorite school activities like robotics, debate team, and chess club.
I looked at the chess club photo closely. Matthew and his friends were standing in front of a chessboard with a mirror on the wall. And for a split second, I could have sworn that the chessboard looked different in the mirror. It looked warped, like it wasn’t a flat board anymore. Like it almost had hills and valleys. No, it couldn’t be. I rubbed my eyes. There, in the mirror was a checkered man. I knew it was there. I swear on my mother’s life that there was another person in that photo. And then it was gone. Maybe the picture was just printed badly. But I had to make sure my eyes were right.
So I brought the postcard to school with me and I showed Jose. I asked him if he saw the checkered man in the mirror. He said no. But that wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear. That was the answer I hoped I wouldn’t hear. I asked him again. He said no again. Then I asked him another time. He said I was being annoying. So I asked another one of my friends. He said no too. So I moved on to yet another friend. He told me to stop.
I angrily clutched the postcard in my hand, crumpling it. I was the only one that saw what was really there. Everyone else was lying to me. They refused to see the truth.
I screamed and ripped up the postcard. I stomped on its pieces. I rubbed them in the dirt for good measure.
Somewhere in the distance, I heard the sound of electronics beeping.
It rang in my ears.
It was weirdly comforting to me.
You can leave the Valley of the Sentries. But the valley will never leave you.

Hey y'all, I recently started 1Q84 as my 6th Murakami book and I'm loving it so far! Just finished chapter 9 (where the term 19Q4 is coined) so there's a whole lot left, but I recently read and loved Orwell's 1984 and couldn't help but notice the connections between the two books. Didn't see a lot of people talking about it so I figured it'd write down what I noticed here:

• Aomame noticing a shift in reality where everybody else knows about past events that, according to Aomame, never happened is practically the same as the whole concept of doublethink in 1984. In 1984 the Ministries constantly make up fake news articles which they present to be the truth, and all citizens are brainwashed enough to believe it. The comparison goes even further when you look at how O'Brien describes the concept of doublethink in the third part of the book, where he basically questions the concept of reality and how humans define something to be real. In his view, when something like a new fake historical event is made up it actually becomes the new reality. The concept of what's real and what's not becomes way more fluid. I feel like Aomame's supposed shift in realities is a nice conceptualization of this idea.
  
• Tengo is basically a parallel to Winston, the protagonist of 1984. Winston works for the Ministry of Truth to rewrite and falsify news items (or "create a new reality" if you look at my previous point). Tengo is also working on rewriting a book someone else wrote, falsifying it. Furthermore, I noticed that both Winston and Tengo have a traumatic memory relating to their mother which still influences them to some degree. I also think it's funny that Tengo is a math teacher and "2 + 2 = 5" is famous quote from 1984 regarding doublethink, something Winston actually believes to be true in the end.
  
• Fukaeri's limited speech could be related to Newspeak which is very limited compared to English. In 1984 it is the new language the Ministries are developing where all 'unnecessary' words are removed, heavily impacting freedom of speech and, as a result, freedom of thought. This further strengthens the similarities between Tengo and Winston, as Tengo is rewriting the book from 'Newspeak' to 'English' and is, by doing so, going against the ideology of the Party, just like how Winston is rebelling against the Party.
  
• There are other small lines referencing doublethink. Aomame's taxi driver explicitly says that she shouldn't be fooled and that there is only one reality. This also goes against the ideology of doublethink so you could relate the taxi driver to Goldstein, the rival of Big Brother. Also, when Tengo describes the memory of his mother at the start of chapter 2, he explicitly questions whether his memory of it is fabricated or not.
  

So for me it's clear that Murakami did his research when writing this book! Really curious to see where it goes next, I already saw the name Big Brother mentioned in the list of chapters so I can't wait to see what Murakami has in store for me, no spoilers please! (I'm reading it in Dutch btw, any fellow Dutch fans here?)

This is going to be a long post, so please bear with me. For starters, this is my second time applying to PA school--I was at a disadvantage last cycle, as I applied late July, almost early August. I was working towards my masters degree during that time, and had a bunch of in-progress courses that I need to retake. I wasn't the best student my sophomore year of college, and Organic Chemistry I was the death of me, had to retake it and passed on my third try. I have shadowed a surgical PA for a few months, but because of the pandemic, the hospital was not allowing any students to shadow anymore. I like the idea of PA's bridging the gaps in healthcare, as with everyone. Although lateral mobility and good work-life balance are enticing factors in being a PA, I don't see that as being true. It really is specialty-dependent, an ideally, I think is best to stick with one speciality and perfect your craft. I don't mind the level of autonomy that comes with being a PA, I feel that everybody can be a leader within their own scope of practice.
However, amidst this journey of applying to PA school, during college, and even high school, medical school and being a physician has been nagging in the back of my mind. I come from two loving parents who never pressured me to pursue a career in medicine, but something that will make me satisfied and have a good life. Being a physician means having the breadth of knowledge, thoroughly understanding the mechanism of actions in medication and diseases. Its better to know and comprehend the whole story and the why, instead of just knowing surface level information. I'd like to think being a research assistant is helping me in solidifying my decision to be a physician--I understand that its two completely different things, but I enjoy showing medical students and other graduate students how to dissect a mouse, I love teaching them the anatomy of the mouse, and what each part is special in, and how it pertains to the research that I do. I love being the leader, and I appreciate when my colleagues come to me for questions and ask for my perspective in different things. I enjoy being a leader, yet I enjoy working in a team. For reference, here are my stats, they are not the greatest, but I'd like to think my experiences showcases that:
-graduated college with a 2.943 gpa, had to retake most of my sophomore year's worth of classes, failed organic chemistry I and passed on my third try. with all retakes and masters, raised to 3.02. despite failing most of soph year, i made deans list numerous times.
-got my masters in biomedical sciences, got a 3.4 gpa
-last 60 credits, 3.66, last 45, 3.61
-1955 hours as a night shift float pct, certified in phlebotomy, ekg, and as a pct.
-1392 hours in biochem research, vitamin D regulation focused. abstract sent out, will be presenting in symposium in fall
-new job as mental health specialist on back up call center, about 60 hours since i just started position
-990 hours in social and affective neuroscience research, presented thesis to psych department
-volunteering: sunday school teacher for 2nd graders, habitat for humanity, health screener in grad school, volunteer in hospital in high risk pregnancy and geriatric wings, summer camp counselor in church, food bank.
-teaching experience: learning assistant for psych stats course, helped teach 37 juniors and seniors as a junior, about 42 hours bc during semester.
-hobbies: food festivals, legos, parrots, painting, cooking and baking.
I have not taken my MCAT, and I told myself that if I do not get far in PA school applications, I will start studying for the test come the fall. The masters program that I am apart of has a linkage with the medical school, so I will try to see what my options are when the time comes. All in all, both professions are excellent, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life wondering what could have been. Some honest advice and feedback would be helpful.

I (F20) and my partner who I’ll call C (M26) have a great relationship for the most part. He’s funny, kind, and emotionally intelligent. He brings a lot of joy into my life and while the idea of breaking it off hurts my heart SO bad, there’s one glaring issue in our relationship: sex, more importantly, the lack of it.
So my bf struggles a lot with ED, body image issues, and the feeling of vulnerability with sex. We’ve been tg for almost a year and have had sex maybe 3 times, and all three of those times were stopped halfway thru bc he got into his head. For me, I’m not particularly hyper sexual and I don’t need a lot of it, but all I’m asking for is like 1/2x a month. He has a lot of baggage, as do I, and while he HAS been making progress (I want to make that clear and I am very proud of him) the progress has been verrrrry slow. We’ve had a lot of convos abt it, and while I almost exclusively initiate, he’s always receptive and willing to hear me. (He has avoidant tendencies while I lean more anxious. I’m very direct and want to solve problems) For the record, I have so much empathy for his situation and I want to help, but have no clue how. I’ve offered toys, other forms of sex, foreplay ideas, etc..
On one hand, I have a wonderful partner in literally every other way. He meets 85% of my needs. But that 15% is a doozy man…
I’m not at the point of breaking up with him or anything yet, but I wanted to get feedback and advice from older ppl as this is my first meaningful relationship. If you need any additional context or info feel free to ask, I just wasn’t quite sure what info to put on this post. Thank you!!

Greetings all,
I'm looking for new books to read and draw ideas and inspiration from, so I thought I'd ask y'all what books you've read in the past or recently that inspired you, that helped generate new ideas and innovations, or that you still go back to years or decades later as a reference?
Two books I constantly refer back to are "How to talk so kids will listen, how to listen so kids will talk" (this helped me enormously as a novice teacher 20 years ago and still does), and "The design of everyday things" by Don Norman
So what are some books that had a bid impact on you or that you still refer back to for insight or inspiration? and they don't have to be limited to ID specifically, anything teaching/learning or design related is of interest to me.
Thanks in advance!

Welcome back to my running series of WWF PPV Reviews from a ‘blind’ perspective (I have no idea what’s going to happen; the results, the feuds or how good any of the matches will be). I have always heard stories of the attitude era and golden age but never watched it myself so I set myself to watching every single PPV event chronologically. I am also watching Wrestling Bios ‘reliving the war’ series to keep me updated inbetween the events with the feuds, and to get excited about upcoming matches.
Before I review the matches, based on the past few episodes of raw and last PPVs I’ll let you know, going into the event, which match I’m most excited for and which feud I’m most excited to see.
The feud and match I’m most excited to see is stone cold vs undertaker. To be honest looking at the lineup this is pretty much the only feud I’m interested in for the entire event, and they don’t really even have one going on. But mankind vs Rocky and the gauntlet match should be interesting in terms of matches
WWF In Your House - Cold Day In Hell 1997 Match Ratings
Flash Funk vs HHH 1/5
Mankind vs Rocky Maivia 1.5/5
Nation of Domination vs Ahmed Johnson 1.75/5
Vader vs Ken Shamrock 2.25/5
Stone Cold Steve Austin vs Undertaker 3.75/5
Triple H has yet to really get going in the wwf, he hasn’t really had any great feuds but his matches are made at least a little more interesting with the accompaniment of Chyna. THE BEAST that is Chyna picks funk up and dumps him on his little funks just for the hell of it after the match which was pretty funny.
Feud wise it really shows in this match, with no buildup at all, the crowd was dead from pretty much the whole time. It was an obvious win for Hunter as he was the bigger name but yeah, nothing too special here apart from a pretty rough bump to funk on the outside on the steel ring ramp.
People just are not behind the rock at this point at all, his entrance music plays after mankind has made his way to the ring and there’s absolutely no pop from the crowd. During the match he’s actually getting booed when he emotes to the crowd. I’m wondering when he has his character change to become as big as he was and still is.
The match itself was pretty boring, not too much happened apart from a nice little assault on the outside on the steel entrance ramp by Rocky. The finish seemed really quick as well, Rocky showed no fight getting KOd in about 10 seconds after mankind applied that mandible claw. Knowing what these men can do I was surprised to see such a lackluster match as well. The last couple of minutes saved the match from being a complete disaster and foley as usual is taking his insane bumps. Foley was by far the best part of the match and the better wrestler, the rock still has a ways to go. The match gets a small bump in rating because of the rock bottom on the ramp which looked really good.
The next match I was pretty hyped to see, we hadn’t seen a gauntlet match up until this point so it was fresh and something unique to look forward to, and the character Ahmed portrays is perfectly suited to this type of match.
Ahmed got a great pop from the crowd for his entrance and to be fair he does make a pretty good baby face to get behind, I’m finding myself getting into this feud as it takes place.
Crush actually puts up more of a fight than I thought he would, it was a pretty slow start to the match though with nothing too noteworthy, but Johnson delivers a spinning kick that looked good to crush to knock him out of the match. Sadio vega comes in next and surprisingly proceeds to dominate Johnson for a while; Ahmed looks out on his feet for most of this bout. Side note my god Vega loves his nerve holds it’s the only hold I see him use pretty much. Whenever Ahmed begins to get back into the match he gets a great pop from the crowd which is nice to see and he’s actually performing pretty well here; definitely more exciting than the NOD members, which isn’t saying much but still. Sadio ends up getting DQd after he hits Ahmed with a chair and proceeds to beat the hell out of him with the same chair, setting up for the final member farooq to get into the ring and finish the job. The crowd is really behind Ahmed to win this match and so am I he’s showing great heart at this point in the match. Ahmed hits a massive power bomb finisher on farooq and he manages to somehow kick out, this is pretty exciting, but then farooq comes back with his own finisher to end Ahmed’s hopes and dreams.
This match got pretty good right at the end in all fairness, I felt myself getting pretty hyped and really routing for Ahmed. I understand why he had to lose but it was still a unique match to watch. Overall though this was pretty boring aside from the last like 2 minutes. Sadio and crush were super slow in the ring and very boring to watch. It was a cool idea with a kinda poor execution, had a couple moments that were interesting but it wasn’t more than that. It could’ve been good because the feud was kinda interesting with the stipulation of potentially having to disband the group if they lost, but it just wasn’t great.
And then the submission match between shamrock and Vader… this show just isn’t hitting right now is it 😂😂. I don’t really know what to say about this match I just didn’t enjoy it at all. Shamrock put in an okay show but it was so obvious where Vader was talking him through absolutely everything. Fair play to shamrock though he took a few decent bumps from Vader but the whole match didn’t work for me at all, it just wasn’t for me. (I’ve rewatched it after learning that Vader was pretty out on his feet because of shamrocks stiff shots and to be fair maybe I was just in a sour mood after the horrendous start, so I bumped up the rating a bit).
Stone cold finally gets some hype going with a nice intro promo, which is much needed in this event. It’s been abysmal so far not one match I’d even consider watching again. But stone cold has been blowing it out the park recently so I’ll wait and see what the main event delivers. Undertaker and stone cold can’t miss right?
Before I say this just know that I am a massive undertaker and Austin fan, but this match was nowhere near their best. The last 10 minutes were really good and 5* worthy action but the 10 or so minutes before that was pretty slow for an Austin match, he held a headlock for a very long time and the initially pumped crowd weren’t feeling it at all. Then another hold and another and for what the stakes were; one of austins first shots at the title, it didn’t feel like he was wrestling with that kind of tenacity he should have had.
Enough negativity though, there were some really high points during this match that the crowd popped for especially that triple counter tombstone pile driver ending. They had some really good brawling exchanges as well, undertaker especially really showing off and with his long hair it looks so good when he’s just teeing off on people. The hart foundation added a little more depth although I feel like it didn’t really do much for the match itself other than having Austin give them the finger and a couple of minor interruptions. All in all though this match felt like a building block for upcoming feuds and matches rather than a quality world title fight, but the ending really did seal it as something worth watching and saved the show, just a bit, from being a complete disaster.
Overall this event was very lackluster for me I really didn’t enjoy most of it. It had a few good physical moments in a few matches and the end of the main event was the highlight but you can definitely go without watching this ppv. I am excited to see what comes up as, like I said, this ppv felt like a building block for upcoming matches. It’s a bit like watching phantom menace, you watch it to get the build up to the main event, not for the actual movie… actually this really felt pretty much exactly like watching the phantom menace. A terrible sit through with something really worth seeing right at the end.
Overall rating 2.25/5

We're doing small murals in my high school, and I want to paint something hole related (maybe like a lyric or something associated with hole). My art teacher says it has to be something inspirational tho, which is...not what hole usually does. Any ideas?

Their wings were not clipped. I quickly realizing they’re not inside house and just ….? I don’t think I’ve really processed the fact that they’re gone. I’m just numb. Tears do start streaming down my face when I look at their pictures, but I am not feeling anything.
Anyway, I don’t know why but I just don’t see anything working to get them back. Like they can fly very well, who’s to say they’re somewhere around (we went to check). Even if they were, how will we ever catch them? They were not 100% domesticated so they will fly away if you try.
Reading stories in this subreddit that their escaped lovebird was found a day after, 1 week after or even 8 months (?) is just .. I just don’t understand how that’s even possible to be so lucky.
Any advice on like what to do? Like how do I navigate this whole thing? How did you deal with the pain of losing two dear pets that improved my life immensely the last four years and made me happy every fucking time I would see them. I was truly obsessed. I would constantly stop whatever I’m doing just take a moment and look at them. They were soooooo cute and funny.
Any advice on how to approach this situation? Keep looking for them even though it just feels so delusional? Online I did share pictures of my birds. How do I deal with the idea that they probably won’t survive the wild, and that it was my fault that their life is cut short? Any other stuff that I should take into account? :(

hi! my boyfriends mom is in her 70s and has dementia and i have been looking after her for a couple of months now. lately it's been a challenge for me and frustrating.. i want to get along better and watch shows and movies to make her happier. she likes a lot of nature documentaries like the octopus teacher and funny shows like the old addams family and game shows.

So put the long story short ( I will any details required in comments )
I have had a bad break up 4 yrs back and decided against relationships in general until 1 khadoos manager joined our office ( different team but interlinked with us functionally ) and he is obviously khadoos ( Everyone hates him and he hated everyone ) lo n behold guess who fell for eachother?
I have no idea why i thought it was good idea it checked every list point that i DIDN'T want in a guy and I had quite an issue with everything he did and then I met a guy ( later turned out to be jerk in disguise ) and he was recently how I wanted a guy to be .. too good to be perfect and My parents he was great too so my knee jerk reaction to a bad fight with khadoos was to start talking to my perfect guy ( I was still talking to khadoos and he knew the life update ) recently the new relation ended in few weeks since it was decided on my checklist and not feelings. This somehow made Khadoos think we are meant to be etc etc but this made me absolutely aversive to relationships and I can't be jumping from 1 guy to another... I was still on speaking terms but one day he just pushed me to get serious, married and move abroad and I just decided I am wasting his time ( though i told him I am absolutely done with relations ) I didn't wanted to give him any hope what do ever and decided to hard stop any means of communication.
2 months later, this man has become my living nightmare... raise escalations day in and out with my manger on me and point out any small thing I did as a grave issue. I am planning on putting down my papers tomorrow because i cant deal with anymore.
He always joked how either of us should quit this job cz everybody thinks we don't like eachother, but it has come to a point where I have to quit because of him. I am just planning on sending him a ' you win' message on my last day.
It's funny bcs I was just missing him since 3 days and universe said girl this is the person I saved you from.
To the future commenters, please shame me mental health is at an all time low. Anyone who gets up and say POSH lagao cz this is revenge of you rejecting the guy. This is guy I once respected and I understand the actions are from pain. even if he was a bad person, I wouldn't wanna fight with the beast, hence the message you win on last day to satisfy his ego and hopefully he stops bothering me

I am a graduating senior at my highschool in the DFW area. In the past few years I have gotten really in depth in how our Broadcasting studio, Stadium camera set up among many other things. I know more than any of my teachers on the in-depth technical side of it. This past year I taught one of the new teachers the stadium. (We have 2 stadiums and 4 High schools, each school runs their own football video crew at their respective shared stadium.) This upcoming year half of the teachers left and new ones will need to be trained on stadium operations. My teacher has proposed to higher ups in the district of hiring me back to get both stadiums to the same set up (they all have same gear but some things are broken at each) and to teach the new teachers on operation of the stadium.
I have no idea if what a good rate would be to charge. In my mind I would charge a flat rate to go through both stadiums to test all the equipment, show files, and confirm that everything works. Use that as a time to get both to be exactly the same even to the labels on things so troubleshooting would be easy. I would note down what is broken or needs to be fixed and provide a quote for the replacement or fix of that. For the teaching I think I would either charge flat rate or hourly for the teaching of the stadium operation. If I was to be “on call” per say during games and operation I would charge a lower hourly rate for being “on call” then if I got a call would charge a higher hourly rate. If I had to make a trip out there to fix or service something than that would be a quote or hourly.
This is just what I thought I should do. I have no idea what I should charge per hour or for anything. I know if they approve of the plan I would need to become a district approved vendor and work as a contractor not employee. What type of company should I make? A llc? Will I need insurance and what else do I need to think of. Whst do I include on the contract and how to make one. What do I do to keep personal and business expenses separate or anything else I am missing.
Thank you for any advice or tips.

Idk how to better explain this but i tend to very quickly shift my expression from that of happiness to sadness in one moment and it looks like i'm uncomfortable with happy expression. Good example would be when someone makes a funny joke to which im laughing but i quickly stop. No idea how much this thing is connected to my depression but i just wanna know if anyone else have the same issue

Hi, I live in a small town in central NJ with my husband and two kids. We have an incredible landlord and are renting, but would like to buy eventually. School district is great, community is great, love everything except that the housing market in our area is bananas. We can't afford to buy a house despite a good (150k+) salary per year from my husband and save for retirement/kids college. I just completed a degree and will be working roughly 20 hrs per week due to medical stuff that limits how much I can do. Assume an average hourly rate of $50 as a w-2 once I secure the job.
Here's the question. What are things we should consider when deciding if we stay here and rent indefinitely or move to PA to buy a house? Family is here but relationship is...complex and they are minimally involved/supportive. We have friends in the area who we love but the idea of renting for decades is depressing. Also, bc our landlord is amazing, he hasn't raised our rent in years and so if we ever had to move, we could not get anything close to what we have for less than another thousand per month I'm guessing.