I am not the OOP. The OOP is u/secondhandsunflower posting in interviews
Concluded as per OOP
1 update - Short
Thanks to u/redrosebeetle for finding this BORU
Mood Spoiler - positive
Original - 22nd April 2024
Update - 9th May 2024
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Should I decline an interview I know is a courtesy interview?
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I recently applied for a position in a large hospital system I previously worked for (but in a completely different department this time). I knew from the beginning that I was receiving the benefit of a "friends and family" recommendation from the president of the hospital, whom the manager of this department directly reports to. I felt fine about this because my resume is strong and I know I would be a great fit for the position, but two days after my phone screening, I got a "sorry, there were just too many better qualified candidates" rejection email.
Fine. Not the end of the world.
But the same day the president became aware of this, I received a backtracking email from the recruiter along the lines of "I spoke with the hiring manager, and we decided that we would like to interview you after all, etc."
I know this is a courtesy interview. I'm flattered that the president put in a good word for me, but I feel stressed and defeated knowing this interview is happening not based on the worth they see in me, and that it's going to be a performative waste of time.
They're going to contact me sometime this week about scheduling the interview. Should I politely decline? I'm very burnt out on the job hunting/interview process already, which might be clouding my judgement, but there's no way there's an actual opportunity here, right? Any advice either way would be appreciated.
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Comments
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TomatoFamous4133
Attending the interview will not be a loss for you. Moreover, it will demonstrate your gratitude towards the president who has supported you. They had faith in you for a reason; now is the time to prove them right.

OOP: That's true, I hadn't thought of it that way. If nothing else, she extended herself to ensure I had the opportunity to interview, so it would be a bit rude to decline. Thanks for the perspective.

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JoanofBarkks
I disagree with your take ;). The president wants you to be interviewed. You can't know if there isn't a second position open now or in the very near future. IMHO it's worth the effort to get your first interview with them. I wouldn't decline.

OOP: I appreciate your optimism 😂 But I'll take your advice. At the very least, I have the chance to make a good impression.

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Schmoe20
However the light shines your way do not be discouraged because it came from a unexpected direction than you perceived was the best way. Life throws us many opportunities from assorted angles. I’m happy for you getting a chance to be considered and to be where you have been favored as a person of value to work with and have on the team.

OOP: Thank you! I appreciate your kind words.

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OOP: EDIT: Thank you so much to everyone who has replied and offered insight. I realize now that I was too much in my head, and my assumption that there was nothing to gain was shortsighted. I appreciate the advice, and I plan to accept the chance I've been given, do my best, and see what comes out of it.

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Update - 17 days later
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tl;dr: I was given the opportunity to interview for my dream position based on the recommendation of the organization's president (whom I know from previously working there). I assumed the interview was just a "courtesy interview" and there was no way I'd land the position.
So...I'm very glad I ended up listening to everyone's advice and taking the interview seriously despite thinking I had no chance. I got the job!
The interview went really, really well. The department head and I had a fantastic conversation after the formal part of the interview was over, and I got the sense right away that we would work well together. Apparently, she felt the same!
Additionally, I found out that the decision itself had nothing to do with the president's interference. After I received the offer, I reached out to thank her for her referral, and she flat-out told me, "I didn't do anything, the hiring decision was completely up to [hiring manager]. If he didn't think you were the best candidate, you wouldn't have been hired. He and [department head] were really impressed with you."
I start in June, and I'm beyond excited. A huge thank you to everyone who offered advice!
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Comments
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meangreen23
I remember reading this! I’m glad it worked out! You may have been more relaxed since you didn’t think you had a chance and were able to really let yourself shine! Either way, congrats!

OOP: Thanks so much! That could definitely have been the case. I prepared well but went into it with a, "I have nothing to lose," attitude. Whatever it was, I'm so happy it worked out!

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soccerguys14
Nice. I remember your post. Glad you went and it worked out. Is this a big step up for you? Raise follow? Hope you enjoy the new gig OP.

OOP: Thank you! It's a step up into a professional position in my field, where I'd previously worked as a paraprofessional. I got my master's last year, so this is my first position that requires that degree. The salary and location is much better as well.

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I am not the OOP. Please do not harass the OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

So much news, I'm struggling to find a place to start. Half of that struggle might be due to exhaustion. Again.
Well, lets start with my writing. Praise me, praise me, I finally finished writing the fourth chapter last night. Eventually, I'll go back to add a few things and edit, but for now, I can put it behind me and move on with the story. Thank goodness. I didn't write anything today, not yet, because today was another gardening day.
Good news is that even though most of the plants outside are looking a little worse for wear, they'll probably all survive. We planted everything but the herbs. I don't think I mentioned it, but Mother bough a cantaloupe plant and some acrd squash two day ago. It was warm and mostly sunny, a lovely day to be outside. I'm quite glad I trimmed my hair a few days ago because by midday, I was actually sweating. The large planter is full of bak choy, zucchini, leeks, and the cherry tomato bush. We alternated between shovelling dirt into the wheelbarrows to bring to the backyard and planting. The wheelbarrows are actually the neighbours. Years ago, not long after he first moved in, we gave him our old wheelbarrow and he's payed that favour back twice over. He's a lovely man. Anyway, we planted the peppers in the planters Mother got me for my birthday and they look great, aside from the occasional hail-hole. Mother planted most of the flowers. It's beginning to look lovely out there - though things like the garlic and currant bushes are still suffering from that storm - and we planted everything we had except for the herbs. Tomorrow is going to be even nicer. If I can get the last of the planting done quickly, I might even have the time and energy to write outside.
As you may expect, I am again exhausted. I went to sleep early, for me, last night and it certainly helped me this morning but again, my energy levels are drying up. Still, I need to write tonight. I've thought a lot about how the beginning of chapter five is going to go. I half-dreamed about it as I was falling asleep. When I actually was asleep, I had a strange dream about being at the airport with a childhood friend of mine. The plane was absurdly tall and the pilot had it out for us. We ended up missing the flight. For some reason, the most vivid part of that dream was the redness of the plan seats. It was like they were freshly painted; dripping wet as the roses in the red queen's garden. It was strange.
But, back to the point, I'm looking forward to writing. I don't think I've ever been so ready to start a chapter, at least mentally. For now, though, I need to let myself rest. I'll perk back up and pick up where the story left off tonight.
Yours & Mine,
S.O. Skinner

Throwaway account. The cast: Myself (25) and my husband "Tom" (27), his brother "Fern" (30), his sister "Margaret" (40) and her husband "Cory" (37), their dad and their stepmom. This is going to be super long, so I apologize in advance, but there really is SO much to get through.
I married into the family about a year ago. They are all a pretty tight knit bunch, but have been exceedingly welcoming and accepting towards me. It took a while for me to warm up because Im always hesitant around new people, but I actually have a lot of fun with them and they have gone out of their way to make me feel like part of the family. I discovered early on that my husband's family has a unique way of handling conflict, and its in sharp contrast to the way my own family handles disagreements. My family confronts issues head on (sometimes ending in screaming matches if it gets heated enough) and all of us tend to speak up when something is bothering us or is fundamentally hurtful to someone. Tom's family is the opposite- they rarely address anything in real time, if at all. They typically whisper about it behind each other's backs, and usually just sit in tension for extended periods of time. It's been made clear to me that the only person in his family that is directly allowed to address an issue is their dad; everyone else follows suit. This means if he isn't saying anything, no one else does- period.
The issue in all of this? My husbands sister, Margaret. I'll give you a little bit of background- She has 4 kids with her husband Cory and they have a really odd dynamic between the two of them. Margaret is the more domineering of the two, often speaking for the both of them while Cory just sort of sits there and nods along. Margaret is really prone to emotional outbursts over things that simply do not make any sense. There are so many instances of the chaos that Margaret has caused within the family that it would take an eternity to describe them all. I do have some notable one's though: repeatedly guilting people if they don't immediately drop everything to watch her 4 kids, screaming at the top of her lungs/causing a HUGE scene when there was tomatoes on her salad during a birthday party, regular complaining that no one helps her with anything (her apartment, car, and kids have been almost exclusively funded by the rest of the family without any expectation of being paid back), and trash talking her entire family publicly on social media on a regular basis. Not once has anyone ever addressed these things with her, and its continued to escalate over time.
The biggest issue right now is the rift between Margaret and the Stepmom, and how that is affecting the entire family, myself included. Stepmom married into the family about 4 years ago and is one of the kindest people I have ever met- point blank period. Margaret publicly shames her at every family function and seems to specifically reach for the cruelest things you could say/do to someone. Margaret regularly asks Stepmom to babysit, but freaks out when stepmom says "no" to any of her children (Margaret insists that this is 'toxic and abusive parenting') Stepmom cant have children, and Margaret has told her that she's "thankful for this because it was God doing the world a favor". She's told stepmom that she was the reason her cousin k*lled herself. She refuses to acknowledge her as a matriarchal figure and regularly says things like "this is my DADS house, not yours", "Im not your daughter", "you'd never be fit to be a mom" and "IDK why my dad even married you". Margaret has gone as far as to compare stepmom to their Dad's exwife, who stabbed him and ended up in prison. Stepmom has reached out multiple times to try and rectify/make peace with the situation, but Margaret escalates everytime she does. All of this is so absurd for a woman of her age that I cant stand it. I have kept my mouth shut for years at this point out of respect for the "family norms" even through all of this, but last week I decided I'd had enough.
Fern called me in tears to tell me that Margaret had ruined a dinner they went to that night..........again. Margaret has regularly used Fern as an emotional punching bag, and him calling me in tears is a regular occurrence at this point. At dinner, Margaret had called him fat and told him she didn't want her kids around him anymore because "they would think being fat is okay". For context, Fern has struggled with an eating disorder for most of his life.
On the phone call, Fern basically spilled his guts. There's a family vacation to Italy every few years and apparently Stepmom isn't going anymore because of Margaret. Fern also let me know that there has been talk of cutting Margaret out of the family for years, but their Dad hasn't even started the conversation of "this isn't okay" yet, so none of them can say anything. Fern had tried to contact the husband (Cory) to see if there was something going on, but Cory refused to talk. I have always been friendly with Cory- he's a nice guy, and if you can get to him without Margaret in the room, he's actually really full of life and fun- so I called him myself. Cory told me that everyone is being "SO MEAN" to Margaret and she's trying to "break generational cycles" - it sounded like he had a script in front of him the whole time and was almost word for word the same nonsense that Margaret says all the time. Margaret is a victim, everyone else is crazy, no one understands her. etc. etc.
After listening to him for a while, I told him I cared about him but that I was done with Margaret's BS. I blocked their numbers, their social media, and eliminated any other ways they had to contact me. This is a BIG no-no in this family- you don't confront it, you don't say anything, you just sit there and take it. I contacted Fern and stepmom and told them about my decision, and let them know that I wasn't going to show up to anything if Margaret was also going to be there. I told Tom and we had a whole conversation about it. Everyone is telling me they support me in my decision- but they have all also said some variation of "I wish I could do that because I am in the same boat". The subsequent backlash from all of this is that although I am maintaining relationships with the rest of the family, Margaret is even worse at functions now. I don't have to see it, but I hear about it all the time and am starting to wonder if I made the wrong decision. I didn't want to make it worse for anyone, but I just couldn't watch it happen anymore without escalating things, myself. It really was getting to a point where I felt so stifled that I thought I might hit her out of frustration, which is why I chose to back out after all of this. The family still hasn't said anything to her, and my husband told me that "they all have a role to play", but that I also kind of disrespected his dad by saying/doing this.
Am I the jerk?
TLDR; My SIL plays the victim a lot but is actually the aggressor most of the time, and I chose to end all contact which is upsetting the rest of the family.

I've been following a recipe for cutlets. Pretty simple but they are tasty. It's a can of mashed chickpeas, some mushroom seasoning, nooch, onion and garlic powder, 1 1/2 cups of VWG and enough water to bring it together. They get steamed before breading and frying. Anyway, I was placing them in the steamer, some overlapping but no problems with them sticking. I decided to make a minor change by adding broth (the no chicken bouillon). Steamed them (gently) and when I went to remove the overlapping parts were glued together. I used a knife to slice them apart. They need some time in the fridge before the breading / frying. I figured maybe some wax paper to keep them separate but they stuck on to the wax paper like super glue. Is it possible the broth is causing this because when I was using water everything was fine.
I made some similar style but 'steak' flavorings and used broth in it and no issues. And that one contains soy sauce and tomato sauce which I'd think would be sticky but no issues, steaming or refrigerating.
Any ideas ?
edit: I should say that the amount of water / broth I add is about 3/4 cups.

Rotten Tomatoes: 89% (37 reviews) with 8.60 in average rating
Metacritic: 84/100 (26 critics)
As with other movies, the scores are set to change as time passes. Meanwhile, I'll post some short reviews on the movie. It's structured like this: quote first, source second. Beware, some contain spoilers.

As much as I loved the character of Furiosa in “Fury Road,” do we really need to see her tangled, deep-dive-that-somehow-stays-on-the-surface origin story? It’s an impulse, at heart, that grows out of franchise culture, and maybe that’s why “Furiosa,” for all the tasty stuff in it, is a half-satisfying movie. Miller creates a volatile world to wander around in, and I suspect a number of viewers and critics will respond fully to that. But part of the genius of the “Mad Max” films is that when they’re pumping on all cylinders, even when they’re as grand as “The Road Warrior” and “Fury Road,” they are also, in spirit, as lean and mean as one of those lethal spiked jalopies zooming down the blacktop. In attempting to inflate his universe into something larger, Miller clutters it with pretension and makes it mean less. He takes his eye off the place where the rubber meets the road.

-Owen Gleiberman, Variety

Whether "Furiosa" is even better than "Fury Road" is less important than the obvious fact that it makes "Fury Road" even better than it was before.

-David Ehrlich, IndieWire: A–

So tip your the greasy, dusty, battered hat to George Miller, who is pulling off some kind of ridiculous feat by turning these grungy action movies into a grand saga.

-Steve Pond, TheWrap

It’s hard to overstate how immaculately crafted Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is, both as a prequel to Max Max: Fury Road and as a stand-alone story of how the Wasteland created a powerful character. With a ferocious and savage heart, George Miller’s film takes flight into epic status. Weaving together top-notch worldbuilding, an emotionally resonant directorial eye, searing performances, sharp cinematography, and a Hell-raising score, this is a remarkable hero’s journey punctuated by incredible action scenes and an utterly stunning reflection on life and love prevailing beyond the fall of civilization. Maybe Hideo Kojima said it best: “George Miller is my God, and the Saga he tells is my Bible.” Witness it.

-Lex Briscuso, IGN: 10/10 "masterpiece"

The chassis may look familiar but there is a very different engine driving Furiosa from that of Fury Road: it’s a rich, sprawling epic that only strengthens and deepens the Max-mythology. It shall ride eternal!

-John Nugent, Empire: 5/5

Filmmaker George Miller returns to the Wasteland to tell us how the 'Mad Max' savior took her own hero's journey — and delivers another high-octane knockout.

-David Fear, Rolling Stone

In a sense, Dementus is a character artificially contrived to give Furiosa someone to face off with, a warlord distinct from Immortan Joe. But Taylor-Joy and Hemsworth are a great pairing and Taylor-Joy is an overwhelmingly convincing action heroine. She sells this sequel.

-Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian: 4/5

Inevitably, these two movies will play together on double bills in revival houses for decades, or maybe Miller will want to find a way to splice them together into a six-hour epic. The match between them appears seamless, and in fact Miller and co-writer Nico Lathouris created the whole origin and backstory of Furiosa in novel and script form even before setting out to make Fury Road. This is the best screenplay of any Mad Max film, with much to say.

-Pete Hammond, Deadline

Hate to be a grouch when legions of social media film bros are breathlessly worshipping at the altar of The Demi-God of Cinema, George Miller, but Furiosa is a big step down from Mad Max: Fury Road. Whereas the 2015 instant action classic had grit, gravitas and turbo-charged propulsion that wouldn’t quit, this fifth installment in the dystopian saga grinds on in fits and starts, with little tension or fluidity in a narrative whose shapelessness is heightened by its pretentious chapter structure.

-David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

Please note this is the original submission I sent Refinery29. In the current post,they have given me a second credit card with a 100$ balance, as well as generational trauma from World War II and cut context for other things. I am trying to get that fixed.
Per previous discussion in comments here: The espresso machine is a Bezzera, which ranges from 2-5K. We got ours on sale for 1.7K, it’s a work house and we use it everyday, still hurts that we spent that money on a coffee maker.
I do understand mortgage is debt but when you compare it to rent to a lesser value condo in Vancouver it feels like not debt at all, which is how I tend to think of it. Yes I owe my mortgage but also I get my house instead of renting-which may not have become clear.
Please see in full the diary, below (edit for formatting via mobile)
Occupation: Sr Business Analyst
Industry: Tech
Age: 30
Location: Vancouver Island, BC
Salary: 92,000$ (Spouse makes 60,000$ for a combined income of 152,000$ before tax)
Net Worth: ~ 1.2 Million ( house is valued at 989,000$ currently, we have a combined 150,000 in pension, and ~60,000 in various company stocks, and GICs)
Debt: 3,000$ in a zero interest credit card for a 10 month period. We balanced transferred and pay 400$/month. Debt was acquired in Q4 2023 when we had to buy Snow Tires, and do a full break replacement as well as Christmas. 480,000$ in a mortgage, we refinanced in September 2023 for five years fixed rate at accelerated biweekly, however I don’t consider our mortgage debt due to the equity we are gaining, and that our mortgage for a five bedroom, 3 bath single family home is less than rent for a two bedroom condo in Vancouver
Paycheck Amount (Every 2 Weeks): 2,555$ after taxes. (Just mine). Spouse makes 2,308$ after taxes. Our pay periods are alternating.
Pronouns: She/her
Monthly Expenses Mortgage: 1450$ biweekly (100$ extra to the principal).
Utilities: ~200$ (includes water [paid quarterly], hydro [paid bimonthly], gas, sewetrash [paid quarterly] phone [highly discounted due to work plans for spouse and myself] and car gas) Loan Payments: 400$/Credit Card
Car Insurance: 84$
Life Insurance: 167$ combined (67$ me, 100$ spouse)
Health & Dental Insurance: 60$ deducted from pay (coverage for myself and spouse from my employer. Spouse also has coverage for both of us deducted from pay)
Retirement Contribution: 400$ (Employee matches me), (Spouse has a defined pension through work and contributes ~200$ month)
Union fees: 70$ Spouse
Subscriptions: Crave 22$/month (Recent splurge for Binge watching the Rookie), Playstation Plus 100$ (annual bought on Black Friday Deal), Amazon Prime 80$ (Annual), BCAA 120$ (annual) Gym 30$/month (we both have one so 15$/pp)
Note: My spouse and I have completely commingled finances. I will be tracking both as it’s essentially I spent whatever they spent
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
There was always the expectation. My father was very clear, we were very smart. There was no way we’d be wasting our potential. He wanted me to be a lawyer, but unlike other immigrant parents, I got to choose my major and went into social sciences and got my masters in history. I deferred my PhD too much so I got dropped by the program.
I chose my university by where I got a full first year scholarship and then after that took about 15k in student loans for my undergraduate. My parents paid my rent and I got a part time job for food.
For my masters, I had a student line of credit and 5 k student loans otherwise it was all my savings and scholarships. With the line of credit, I had a total of 30K in student loans and paid it off in about four years.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent(s)/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
Save. We talked about how you get a dollar allowance and half of it goes into long term saving with 25% in short term and 25% in spend.
Investing came after I was eighteen. Family would like us to invest in property, however I don’t really want to be a landlord, but also we wouldn’t get to really enjoy profit of owning a rental property due to other family circumstances.
What was your first job and why did you get it?
Ice cream parlour I was twelve and my parents made me get it for responsibility. I lasted three weeks because I hated it.
Did you worry about money growing up?
I grew up thinking we were not rich, because we didn’t get big plane vacations (I didn’t count flying from Toronto to Vancouver every summer as a vacation since we were just seeing family but staying in a house my parents owned) and I had only been to Disney twice.
But we had a big new build house in the rich end of town, my mom stayed home to raise all of us. We had to work for things (like going to see a movie opening night or a new CD) but we always had money and got what we wanted. In retrospect, my family was/is fairly well off.
Both my parents grew up poor, with parents working multiple jobs and different shifts to make ends meet, the strive/drive to not have that childhood, and for my father to be able to retire his parents really impacted mine and my siblings and cousins lives. My father showed me the apartment he grew up in Chinatown a few years back. It’s light years away from the house my grandparents owned when I was a kid and how I grew up.
Do you worry about money now?
Of course. Inflation is real and we are actively planning a wedding for the next year, as well as a baby in the next few years. We also need to buy a second car, so we’re saving for that.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
Fully financially responsible? Twenty five. I lived in a family property where I didn’t pay rent in one of the most expensive cities in Canada, so even though I paid all my bills (food and phone), I didn’t have to pay rent. I in fact made money, as I rented rooms out and used the income for house utilities, and paying my student loans down faster. When I moved in with my spouse, I just paid condo fees until we bought our house two years ago which gave me plenty of time to save.
Our financial safety net is family, and our savings. I know my family would bail us out. My spouse’s father would as well. Conversely, we are my spouse’s mother's safety net and we have to keep all our plans in mind that we will be subsidising her.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain. Yes, I received 50K from my parents once they sold my childhood home, as did both of my siblings. I have also received 10K from one set of grandparents which paid off my car and part of my student loans when I was 21. I will be receiving another inheritance when probate is done for around ~100K. My spouse also has received inheritance which allowed them to buy their first condo in their early twenties when the market was much better. That condo, 50k, and the subsequent upgrading helped us afford our house.
Day 1
10 AM: I drive to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription. Not how I want to start my Sunday morning but y’know. Normally I’d walk since it’s about 20 minutes but I have a UTI. I’m “lucky” that despite not having a dr because of the health care shortage, my work pays for the Maple app so I could get a dr to write the prescription and order the lab work at 1 am. I’ll do the lab work later this week when I can get an appointment but will take the relief now. Insurance makes the antibiotics free, but I also buy hydrogen peroxide because we’re out and we have a dog that thinks everything is meant to be in her mouth. We’ll buy a bigger one at Costco later. I also bought some oral wound mouthwash because we were out. I come home and my spouse made us breakfast.
Total: 15.90$ paid with debit.
1-2:30 PM: We do our taxes. I have a mini meltdown when I realize the part time bakery job I had for a few months didn’t take off income tax last year, so I owe 800$. Luckily, my partner is getting a refund so we net out positive 400$. The bakery took off income tax in 2022, so unsure why they didn’t in 2023. I made us lunch.
3-6:30 PM: We walk the dog, and watch the Rookie. Some time during that time period, a venue emails us back and is surprisingly affordable at 3k. I also get told that the tattoo artist I want to book with, has not chosen me.
6:30-7:30 PM: I explain what lazy girl dinner is to my spouse and make a lazy girl dinner. After not really grocery shopping since Feb for things besides fresh veg, we need to do a big pantry shop and neither of us want that. We debate about buying a food saver and if we should wait for a sale. My spouse is more frugal than me and has determined we should.
8-9:30 PM: We start season 3 of The Rookie, and then after two episodes we go to bed
Day One Total: 15.90$
Day Two
5:45-8 AM: Wake up and start work. I get up to date with what’s happened on the weekend and check that my automated reports. Sometime before 6:30, I get the kettle on for my spouse’s pour over before I go back to my meetings. There’s a twenty minute gap where I get changed and do my skin care and brush my teeth. I’d love to be a skin care person but honestly I’ve spent too much money on product that I don’t use and that just goes bad. Washing my face and using sun screen is a win.
I also make sure that Spouse’s lunch is in his bag and I get our travel mugs ready. Before, we used to go to Starbucks every day. Starbucks used to do free refills on coffee and tea if you were a rewards member if you bought a coffee or tea so it would cost us $5/day (2.5/pp), and we could get refills all day. While that’s 20$/week, 80$/a month and yes, we could have saved it but back then, that 80$ wasn’t turning the dial anywhere significantly for us—a privileged view.
But now, after COVID where I stopped drinking tea after one day working from home having like 10 cups and thinking I was dying, and Spouse has bought a good grinder and we recently splurged on a stupidly expensive espresso machine we call his Engagement Espresso since it costs the same price as my stupidly expensive ring, we bring our coffees.
8-8:30 AM: We drive to work. Prior to buying our house, we were both work from home and lived in a city with amazing transit. We only needed the one car. Since buying the house and moving to a city where public transit is a joke (the one bus goes past our house every 1.5h), Spouse changed jobs and is in office every day and I have to go in 3 days a week. We need a second car or the e-bike rebate to come through. We debate this in the car, since I’m done at 1 pm, and Spouse works normal hours, I either have to take the bus home, or go to the gym for three hours. Today though, I drop Spouse off. I will pick him up later as he has a half day because of the dentist
8:30-12:30 AM/PM: Work. I find a tech manager and ask them to get me more triple a batteries. Work won’t provide or let me expense batteries for my mouse, despite them replacing my usb mouse with a battery one. The poor admin had to tell me the decision is that we’ll all supply our own batteries. Luckily the tech managers have to have batteries on hand and give them out freely.
I ask my boss how the work from home tax forms work, and he is going to find out.
I run more meetings and work on a request for a dashboard and a business case for a new feature that I have to convince leadership to spend money on.
12:30-1 PM: I drive back to my Spouse because he has a dentist appointment.
While I wait for a spouse, I am incredibly hungry. I’m usually not hungry/don’t eat a proper meal until around 1 in the afternoon and my two granola bars I already ate at the office. I go to the bakery by Spouse’s work and buy a cheese bun for me (3.65$), and an apple pie scone (2.55$) for Spouse as a snack. Spouse points out he won’t be able to eat until after his appointment.
Total: 6.20$ debit
1-1:30 PM: I drop Spouse off, and the car stops working. The engine won’t catch. I try multiple times and then run into the dentist to dramatically announce to Spouse and the receptionists that the car won’t start. Spouse asks me what he wants me to do about this, since he’s about to go into an appointment. A very kind receptionist tells me it might be the alternator. I don’t know what that is.
I go back to the car to Facetime my father. He also asks what I think he can do to help since he lives 3000 km away. Weirdly, and sexistly, I thought a man who grew up at race tracks, in a racing family, or the man who has collected and worked on sports cars for forty years might be able to help.
Spouse texts me to remind me we have BCAA while my father also tells me that. I finally get the engine to catch and drive the very long way home, going the speed limit and getting stuck in traffic, construction and a bus. It takes me 20 minutes to get home instead of 10.
1:30-2:30 PM: I walk the dog, mail a (late) birthday card and then start researching what an alternator is. The car is over a decade old and until the house, the most expensive thing I ever bought at 12K back in 2015. We have the funds for the cost, but it’s my first car and the fact it might be the end of its life is scary.
Alternators can cost between 400-800$ repair with labour, so that’s fun.
My dad calls me back and apologises for asking me what he could do away. He advises me that there’s probably a bald spot on the alternator and advises me to go to the mechanic to check or replace it, if the car doesn’t start again.
I call the mechanic to book an appointment, and to also get the snow tires off and to buy new rims for the snow tires. The mechanic lets me know that the alternator part is 500$, and an hour of labour so with taxes we’re looking at around 700$
That future appointment next week (we’re going down a highway this weekend which requires snow tires) will cost ~1.5K, assuming we replace the alternator.
I make lunch and sigh.
2:30 PM: The car starts thankfully. I drive incredibly slow. I pick up Spouse by idling the car. We get an email back from a venue saying they cost 75,000$ minimum. The timing is hysterical.
Due to the nature of the dentist, Spouse owes 618$, as they haven’t flipped it under my insurance. They split it in half, as he has a follow up in two weeks. After the next appointment they will flip the whole amount under me and we’ll get reimbursed for the whole amount.
Total 309$/credit card.
3-10 PM: We walk the dog, make dinner (Spouse makes white sauce pasta, with chicken and peas) and watch The Rookie. There are thirteen episodes in season three, and we will be busy every night this week besides Friday and Sunday, and I would like to finish season three so we can start season 4 next Monday. I don’t want to pay for more than one month of Crave. We have five episodes left
Day Two Total: 315.2$
Day Three
1 AM: 100$ is automatically transferred from our account to the credit card debit. We have an auto transfer of 100$/every Tuesday to a Visa where we balance transferred both our cards. We have an offer for 0 interest for 10 months, so we did that for some of the bigger expenses (snow tires, break replacement and general Christmas) and are on track to pay it back within the next 6 months. That visa is our emergency card that we just have in the back end and utilise for promos like this. It allows us to keep our two cards balances manageable and lets us pay in an easier way than taking big chunks out of our various savings.
Total: 100$/direct deposit
5:45-9 AM: Work. Meetings, reports, trying to convince a colleague that the process does include them and refusal to follow it means that their requests won’t be done. Spouse has another half day so I can go into the office at my leisure—if the car starts
9-9:20 AM: The car starts, I get into the office and refresh a data flow before a meeting with a new stake holder. It takes longer to drive into work today because the tourists are starting to come and their van builds or campers are not exactly highway speed and with a two lane highway, if you don’t merge over fast enough you’re stuck.
10:05-10:20 AM: Meeting done, car starts again and I drive home for more meetings. The least amount of time in the office is preferable for me.
10:30-11AM : Meeting with my manager where we discuss future salary and promotion. I am due for a promotion in the start of Q2, which would push me to six figures. I’ll believe it when I see it but, I’m really excited at that possibility for my family.
11:15 AM: Spouse leaves for work, we discuss what groceries are needed, as well if he’ll go to Home Depot tonight to buy more clover seeds for the yard, as we need to reseed before it starts raining. I eat a muffin and my dog and cat decide to try and eat each other.
11:15-1:30 PM: Work runs late. There’s some issues with the data and we can’t figure it out. We call it a night, and I’ll record the video presentations tomorrow, once we fix the data.
1:30-4 PM: Nap time! It’s bad for me, but honestly I don’t sleep well during the night so naps are what keep me alive.
4-6 PM I prep dinner (smash burgers and fries), and get chores done and walk the dog.
6-7:30 PM: Spouse comes home, we eat dinner. Groceries come to 96.83 for two 7 pound pork loins, two packs of bacon, chicken nuggets, coffee, pop, 8 pack of peppers, milk, tomato, pickles, rice, avocado, mushrooms, sour cream and lettuce.
Not too bad, we average about 300$/month in groceries because we can buy bulk and have a second freezer.
For the month of March we are currently at 123.61$ for groceries and there is twelve days left. We went on a small weekend away, so we ate out a fair bit but even then our current food budget is 272.27$ today.
Total: 96.83/ debit
7:30-10 PM: Spouse makes a coffee and plays video games with his friends. They do it every week. I have a shower, fold and put away laundry and read in bed.
Day Three Total: 196.83
Day Four
1AM: Our biweekly accelerated mortgage payment comes out of 1450$. I’m tracking it here to be honest on our spending but I tend not to think of it as money spent because in my head it’s already money gone. To pay for a house equivalent in Vancouver, the mortgage would be over 6k. Renting a two bedroom condo would be 3K. It feels like the mortgage is just cheaper rent, even though each time I own more of my house.
5:45-9 AM: Work. I find out the limits of how many people I can invite to a Teams Meeting as well as that the Thursday before Good Friday is a catholic holiday when a few people ask me to reschedule a training forum for over a thousand people. Sometime in there I make us coffee, make sure Spouse has lunch packed (leftovers). Spouse has walked the dog and has the recycling and compost out for pick up. I drop Spouse off at work.
10-11:45 AM: I leave the office for home and more meetings. I walk the dog and go record training videos. I get an email that Amazon is doing their big spring sale. I send a link to a robot mop and vaccum that’s on a big discount to Spouse. We want one, but I’m not in charge of the research on it. I send links to play grounds to my friends with toddlers
11:45-12:30 PM : I shove lunch in my mouth, last night’s left overs. I’m running late, and decide to get myself later by collecting all the random dishes and mugs that just show up places and start the dishwasher. I get to the lab ten minutes early but need to buy gas on the way home.
I tell my team I’ll be MIA for a bit and leave the work phone in the car.
I buy 15.6L of gas for 30$ at 1.879/l it sucks. I don’t fill up because we’re going to my in laws this weekend and there’s a Costco Gas Bar there.
Total: 30$/credit card
12:30-1:30 PM: Work goes long again.
1:30-2:30 PM: Nap!
2:30-4:30 PM: Walk the dog and drive to the gym. I usually go three times a week but with last week’s weekend away and this week’s weird half days from Spouse, today’s the only day. I make it up by doing both upper and lower body and a 30 minute circuit.
4:30-7:30 PM: I pick up Spouse and we go to Costco. We pick up nachos, ham, cheese buns and some other items. We debate buying our friend’s kid a toddler set of clothes and decide no. We end up buying work pants for Spouse, and a garden hose. It comes out to 116.90
I order our Costco dinner of hot dogs and fries for a grand total date night of 6.41$
Total: 123.31/ credit card
8-9 PM: Dance class! We bought a series of six lessons of introduction to ballroom back in December for a new date night idea. We paid 60$/pp and this is the fifth lesson tonight.
9 pm: We’re home, we let the dog out. Spouse spends an undetermined amount of time watching ballroom videos while I sleep.
Day Four Total: 1603.31$ or 153.31 excluding the mortgage payment.
Day Five
5:45-9 AM: Work. All the meetings. Thursday is the meeting day. I debate with a friend what’s the earliest call we’ve had. 4:30 am still wins. I pack lunch for Spouse and his coffee and he leaves. I end up cleaning up cat puke as the cat decides to drink milk from Spouse’s cereal and vomit it up on camera in a meeting.
9-9:30 AM: I make myself a matcha and walk the dog.
9:30-1 PM: Work and I treat myself to a lunch of a cheese bun and ham sandwhich. We used to eat it every Sunday while growing up but the cost of ham has been outrageous. The deal at Costco yesterday was 1.5$/100 g which is really good.
1-1:30 PM: I seal the wooden deer Christmas decoration we bought last year. It sits outside our front door and needs to be weather proofed, and I’ve been putting it off for five months. But the weather is good and we have newspapers. We have left over wood sealer after the sign we bought a year ago so I use that. The dog and the cat both don’t like my wooden deer.
1:30-4 PM: Nap!
4-5 PM: I basically just watch youtube and drink a root beer. I have no energy.
5-6:30 PM: Spouse comes home, we walk the dog and I make dinner (Kraft Dinner and nuggets–I swear we eat veggies but today is not that day). We discuss the possibility of our dog at our wedding as a flower girl, and if she’ll be in a tutu or a cheongsam like me. I am now researching if they make dog cheongsams and if she can match us. The cat, despite all my heart wanting it, won’t physically be there because he will have an anxiety attack and probably die.
6:30-10:30 PM: Board game night! We go to a friend’s to repeat the same scenario we’ve lost two weeks in a row.
10:30-11 PM: I pack Spouse’s breakfast (oatmeal and frozen berries), lunch (spicy tuna and mayo) since he’s trying to go to the gym before work, and feed the animals before we go to bed.
Day Five Total: 0$
Day Six Friday
5:45-9 AM: Work. I have a deep focus block which means I can get the script for the training I have to run. Public speaking is not my strong suit and it’s a group of a thousand people so I’m not looking forward to it. Spouse almost makes it to the gym. I get an email that my new work phone has shipped. I’m surprised because they wouldn’t order us any for the past four years, but I guess my new iPhone will show up next week. I might give my old work phone to my mother in law, since she smashed the camera on the phone we bought her last year.
9-9:30 AM: I walk the dog, make a matcha and make a todo list for what we have to get done before we leave to my in laws tomorrow. I text my mother in law happy birthday, and hope that she got the card in time. She did.
9:30-11:30 AM: My last meeting for the week ends and I’m debating calling it a day so I can nap. Instead I make lunch (cheese bun and ham), text my other mother in law our plan for Saturday, and unload and reload the dishwasher and go back to work for at least another hour.
12:30-1 PM: I shower and do skin care
1-3 PM: Nap! Somewhere in this time FedEx comes and since I’m sleeping, we have to pick up on Monday. I’m not too sure what it is, I assume it’s our custom address stamp from Etsy because that’s the only thing I’ve bought recently but not too sure. I just realized in retrospect, this might be my new work phone.
3-5 PM: I prep dinner (nachos), unload the dishwasher, pack my overnight bag and confirm all our venue tours by email. I start a load of laundry and do a quick clean. I feel like this is not the best image of our diet. I swear we generally eat healthy but we both have been feeling really blah over the past two weeks so have been going for quick and easy over healthy and balanced. I do have three whole peppers and two whole avocados in the nachos though.
5-7 PM: Spouse comes home, we walk the dog, have dinner, and plan out next week. We have a big Wednesday next week (mechanic, I have a nails appointment, dance class), and we are having our friends over for Easter so we need to prep for that. We pack the car so tomorrow is a very easy start.
Spouse also gets paid today. We’re lucky that we’re on alternating pay periods, we used to be on the same and it always felt stressful. Spouse also lets me know his union has secured a 3% cost of living raise to start in Q3. I really like his union for negotiating a base 2% year of cost of living raise, with potential addition raises depending on inflation. It’s a bit away but that’s still good news.
7:30-10:30 PM: We finish The Rookie Season 3 and head to bed. Crave reminds me that I have 10 days until I’m charged again. Sadly, I think we’ll have to pay for 2 months.
Day Six Total: 0
Day Seven Saturday
8:30-9:30 AM: Wake up. No one (except the dog) slept well so we’re not in a morning mood. Spouse makes coffee and walks the dog, while I finish packing the car and give the cat a lot of attention. Our first venue tour is at 11 and the one that is the most expensive (8-10K), but also the one we probably want the most. We live about an hour away but the highway is two lanes and one accident can back everything up for hours.
10:40-1 PM: We visit our dream venue. We stay way longer than expected. Basically if the quote is under 10K, we’ll get it. Just waiting now.
1-2 PM: We get to our in-laws and have a lunch of egg salad sandwhichs. We need to buy gas. My in laws drive us to a pottery painting store.
2-4 PM: We paint pottery. My mother in law only wanted to do this for her birthday. They’ll pick it up in a week after it’s been thrown. I paint a vase (28$), Spouse paints an Easter egg (18$), father in law paints a mug (30$), and mother in law paints a plate (50$)
Total:143.36/credit card
4-5 Pm: We see another venue. It’s an instant no. My in laws decide they want to try Korean fried chicken. We call ahead for take out to get two fries and 16 pieces of half and half. It comes to 50.83$ that my in laws pay for.
5-10 PM: We come back and see that our dog has pooped in their house and also has gotten into their pantry and eaten an entire bag of dog food. It is not a fun night.
We spend the night drinking wine and discussing the wedding and watching TV.
10PM: We go to bed. That’s the end of this week, but tomorrow we will be buying gas and probably lunch for my other mother in law as we will be touring another venue.
Day Seven Total: 143.36$

Hey there everyone;
The demo has been out now for a few weeks and so far the response has been fantastic. A lot of players have checked out the game and the feedback, suggestions, and bug fixes have been rolling in. This patch addresses many issues as well as adds some quality-of-life changes, tweaks, and additional guidance for new players.
Fixes
There has been a variety of fixes made to the game. A huge shoutout to TrabTrab on Steam for their amazing bug-finding reports. This individual has played very hard and come back with some great findings to improve the game.
Rocket Issues There were some issues with rockets, particularly related to multiple rockets using the same landing pad. This has been tracked down and fixed as well as other improvements were made to this rather complex system. It is working much better now, but I will continue to test this aspect as it working correctly is very critical.
Stat Reset Didn't Work The stat reset in the pilgrim quarters was not bringing up the correct HUD, this has been fixed and it now works great.
I Can See Your Feet There was an issue when leaving the stasis pod that would show the hidden mannequin used as the player's body. This rather jarring effect won't occur anymore.
Tier 2 Exports Under Valued Tier 2 exports were set at $5m per export same as the Tier 1 export. This has been raised to $20m to ensure making this complexity leap will be worth your effort as we move to the mid-game and increase research costs.
Over Valued Drill The copper drill was exporting at $5m this was not intended it has been set down to $1m as intended. I want the focus to stay on manufactured exports in the later game, but I do want some goods to have value. We will continue to monitor and change any values that make sense as we continue to develop.
I Can't Eat That Some high-end foods were set as drinks by mistake. And trying to drink food didn't work out too well causing them to be useless. This has been fixed. Higher-end food will play a more vital role later in the game with colonists' mood, but right now most people just eat potatoes.
Exploit Detected There was an exploit that could trigger using manually entered amounts for crafting. This has been removed.
That Ain't Air Tight There was an issue that if you moved in and out from the door quickly you could trigger the door to not fully close and stay cracked open. I have added a final check on this where if something is off it will auto-fix itself. There should be no way to leave a door open moving forward.
Mission Objective Bug There was an issue with the mission objective to send an export back to Earth. It was only looking at rocket 2, not rocket 1, it now correctly looks at both rockets and will fire correctly.
Changes
There have been a variety of tweaks and changes based on player feedback as well as my experimentation. The shout-out list would be pretty large for this category, but I will highlight Garret one of my discord moderators for their excellent feedback in this category.
You Want How Much The foods you can purchase for supplies were far too overpriced. $8m for an M.R.E.? All of the foods have been reduced to be more worthwhile as early supplies if you wish. I was worried about how much you can get with the starting $30m that I overvalued some items that won't hurt your progress.
Tighter Drills I have tightened the copper, ice, and iron deposit grouping to be closer together so it is less of a walk for the player. This might be too good, but I am open to feedback.
Large Plants I have added the ability to look at and collect larger plants such as corn and tomatoes. I was using the base of the plant to collect, but now the entire plant can be used.
Equip And Use Buttons I have removed these buttons from the HUD as I like the idea of drag and drop and using items from the quick bar. Those buttons were more so for console players in the future, but we are so far from that possibility that I would rather just focus on Steam players for now
What Did I Research I have changed the messaging on the research HUD to show the category of research you just unlocked while it is cooling down. I might change this to be the specific unlock but that is quite complex due to the structuring of blueprints. For now, I have implemented showing the category and hope that helps you remember.
Possible Failure I want to make sure the core of what you need is reachable even if you make some mistakes. To this effect, I have made landing pads start unlocked. The keys to survival are food, air, and water. But the key to progress is exporting, manufacturing, and rocket fuel production. Hopefully, this helps stop players from burning up all their funding without having the ability to export.
Drilling Reduction The drills were adding resources very quickly at 1 ore per second. I have changed this to 1 ore per 1.5 seconds. I tried 2 seconds but felt it was too slow. Hopefully, 1.5 is the sweet spot, let me know your thoughts.
Additions
There have been some great additions to the game to make it flow with players even better than it already has been. Shout out to DigitalFrost for some great ideas in this category as well as other contributors.
Give Me A Tip I have added tooltips to each player's stat to give a breakdown of each stats use. I also changed FORTITUDE to RESISTANCE and it will now be used to reduce damage taken.
Message System I have created a new message system that shows up in the bottom right of your screen and stays persistent until you are out of the danger zones. These are for low air, low water, low food, and overweight. I have removed them using the large full-screen warning. I felt it was a bit much with full-screen messages, but we will still use those for some critical messages such as your base going offline or a large attack incoming.
Data Pads I have added a system for datapads to the game. Currently, you start with one datapad titled mission objective. This is a multi-page document about your mission and covers a variety of basics for the player. It is an opt-in readable tutorial in many ways. This system will also be used for future datapads we can place in the world to reveal events from previous missions on Ceres or other story-building points.
Non Stop Crafting You can now continue to use a machine while it is crafting. This was a big change to get in the game, but it honestly feels great. Now you can take part orders off a machine as they are crafting and we display a nice timer inside the HUD for progress. Now if you queue up 25 bars and then realize you need 5, you can just go grab them. Over all this feature feels great.
Straight To The Slot It is now possible to quick slot items from machines right into the player's quick slots. If you drag and drop a quick slotable item it will now auto transfer to the player and quick slot itself where you placed it. Many players tried to do this and then manually moved it to their inventory to quick slot. It seemed like a great idea to help the crafting flow better with players.
More Ice Even though I want players to get to the drilling and hit deposits manually for infinite resources but no exp. Players keep trying to manually farm. So, I added a few more ice resource nodes down below for players spending more time in that area than I meant for them to. I can't control players, but I will do my best to cater to whatever style I see players leaning into, and adding a few more nodes will help with that style of early gameplay.
What's Next
Now that the core early-game loop is functioning well the next focus will be on refining and expanding on that loop before we move on to the mid-game. There are many ideas on the table but you can expect to see some additional open caves to add more value to exploration as well as precursor elements to the narrative of the mission, and some additional life forms to the planet to add some life to the game as well as atmosphere.
There is still a very long way to go before we reach early access, but I am so thankful to have you along for the journey. I can't wait to show you what I have in store for the game.

Hey there everyone;
The demo has been out now for a few weeks and so far the response has been fantastic. A lot of players have checked out the game and the feedback, suggestions, and bug fixes have been rolling in. This patch addresses many issues as well as adds some quality-of-life changes, tweaks, and additional guidance for new players.
Fixes
There has been a variety of fixes made to the game. A huge shoutout to TrabTrab on Steam for their amazing bug-finding reports. This individual has played very hard and come back with some great findings to improve the game.
Rocket Issues There were some issues with rockets, particularly related to multiple rockets using the same landing pad. This has been tracked down and fixed as well as other improvements were made to this rather complex system. It is working much better now, but I will continue to test this aspect as it working correctly is very critical.
Stat Reset Didn't Work The stat reset in the pilgrim quarters was not bringing up the correct HUD, this has been fixed and it now works great.
I Can See Your Feet There was an issue when leaving the stasis pod that would show the hidden mannequin used as the player's body. This rather jarring effect won't occur anymore.
Tier 2 Exports Under Valued Tier 2 exports were set at $5m per export same as the Tier 1 export. This has been raised to $20m to ensure making this complexity leap will be worth your effort as we move to the mid-game and increase research costs.
Over Valued Drill The copper drill was exporting at $5m this was not intended it has been set down to $1m as intended. I want the focus to stay on manufactured exports in the later game, but I do want some goods to have value. We will continue to monitor and change any values that make sense as we continue to develop.
I Can't Eat That Some high-end foods were set as drinks by mistake. And trying to drink food didn't work out too well causing them to be useless. This has been fixed. Higher-end food will play a more vital role later in the game with colonists' mood, but right now most people just eat potatoes.
Exploit Detected There was an exploit that could trigger using manually entered amounts for crafting. This has been removed.
That Ain't Air Tight There was an issue that if you moved in and out from the door quickly you could trigger the door to not fully close and stay cracked open. I have added a final check on this where if something is off it will auto-fix itself. There should be no way to leave a door open moving forward.
Mission Objective Bug There was an issue with the mission objective to send an export back to Earth. It was only looking at rocket 2, not rocket 1, it now correctly looks at both rockets and will fire correctly.
Changes
There have been a variety of tweaks and changes based on player feedback as well as my experimentation. The shout-out list would be pretty large for this category, but I will highlight Garret one of my discord moderators for their excellent feedback in this category.
You Want How Much The foods you can purchase for supplies were far too overpriced. $8m for an M.R.E.? All of the foods have been reduced to be more worthwhile as early supplies if you wish. I was worried about how much you can get with the starting $30m that I overvalued some items that won't hurt your progress.
Tighter Drills I have tightened the copper, ice, and iron deposit grouping to be closer together so it is less of a walk for the player. This might be too good, but I am open to feedback.
Large Plants I have added the ability to look at and collect larger plants such as corn and tomatoes. I was using the base of the plant to collect, but now the entire plant can be used.
Equip And Use Buttons I have removed these buttons from the HUD as I like the idea of drag and drop and using items from the quick bar. Those buttons were more so for console players in the future, but we are so far from that possibility that I would rather just focus on Steam players for now
What Did I Research I have changed the messaging on the research HUD to show the category of research you just unlocked while it is cooling down. I might change this to be the specific unlock but that is quite complex due to the structuring of blueprints. For now, I have implemented showing the category and hope that helps you remember.
Possible Failure I want to make sure the core of what you need is reachable even if you make some mistakes. To this effect, I have made landing pads start unlocked. The keys to survival are food, air, and water. But the key to progress is exporting, manufacturing, and rocket fuel production. Hopefully, this helps stop players from burning up all their funding without having the ability to export.
Drilling Reduction The drills were adding resources very quickly at 1 ore per second. I have changed this to 1 ore per 1.5 seconds. I tried 2 seconds but felt it was too slow. Hopefully, 1.5 is the sweet spot, let me know your thoughts.
Additions
There have been some great additions to the game to make it flow with players even better than it already has been. Shout out to DigitalFrost for some great ideas in this category as well as other contributors.
Give Me A Tip I have added tooltips to each player's stat to give a breakdown of each stats use. I also changed FORTITUDE to RESISTANCE and it will now be used to reduce damage taken.
Message System I have created a new message system that shows up in the bottom right of your screen and stays persistent until you are out of the danger zones. These are for low air, low water, low food, and overweight. I have removed them using the large full-screen warning. I felt it was a bit much with full-screen messages, but we will still use those for some critical messages such as your base going offline or a large attack incoming.
Data Pads I have added a system for datapads to the game. Currently, you start with one datapad titled mission objective. This is a multi-page document about your mission and covers a variety of basics for the player. It is an opt-in readable tutorial in many ways. This system will also be used for future datapads we can place in the world to reveal events from previous missions on Ceres or other story-building points.
Non Stop Crafting You can now continue to use a machine while it is crafting. This was a big change to get in the game, but it honestly feels great. Now you can take part orders off a machine as they are crafting and we display a nice timer inside the HUD for progress. Now if you queue up 25 bars and then realize you need 5, you can just go grab them. Over all this feature feels great.
Straight To The Slot It is now possible to quick slot items from machines right into the player's quick slots. If you drag and drop a quick slotable item it will now auto transfer to the player and quick slot itself where you placed it. Many players tried to do this and then manually moved it to their inventory to quick slot. It seemed like a great idea to help the crafting flow better with players.
More Ice Even though I want players to get to the drilling and hit deposits manually for infinite resources but no exp. Players keep trying to manually farm. So, I added a few more ice resource nodes down below for players spending more time in that area than I meant for them to. I can't control players, but I will do my best to cater to whatever style I see players leaning into, and adding a few more nodes will help with that style of early gameplay.
What's Next
Now that the core early-game loop is functioning well the next focus will be on refining and expanding on that loop before we move on to the mid-game. There are many ideas on the table but you can expect to see some additional open caves to add more value to exploration as well as precursor elements to the narrative of the mission, and some additional life forms to the planet to add some life to the game as well as atmosphere.
There is still a very long way to go before we reach early access, but I am so thankful to have you along for the journey. I can't wait to show you what I have in store for the game.

Hello, I (28M) am making this post because I need to get this crazy story off my chest. I met a girl on Tinder (22F) at the beginning of this year and I thought we really hit it off. She had recently broken up with a long term boyfriend and was actually couch surfing between different family and friends. I work a lot and I really liked her so I offered to let her stay at my apartment. I also asked her to be in a relationship with me. At first she declined, but on Valentines I managed to pull out all the stops and tried my best to be romantic. (took her out, giant teddy bear, candy all that) I asked again if she wanted to be in a relationship with me and she agreed and moved into my apartment. Everything was good for a couple of months, we really didn't argue and the sex was great.
Her birthday was in April and I asked what she wanted for her birthday. She said she wanted to go on a camping trip and invite a bunch of friends. I was good with that plan and made arrangements to be off from work and spent a couple of hundred dollars on the supplies needed for the trip. She invited a ton of people but the only ones that ended up coming were here best friend, her best friends boyfriend, her brothers, her mom, and two other friends that were neighbors of her best friend. They only showed up at the end of the trip but, I was happy somebody else came for her.
Her best friend also brought her toddler. I had said before we went on the trip that bringing the toddler was not a good idea considering the plan for the weekend was to get drunk and smoke the whole time and that probably wasn't the best place for a two year old. I got ignored and my concerns were dismissed.
Anyway, on 4/20 we all end renting canoes and kayaks from the outfitters at the campground to float down the river. Halfway through; one of my then girlfriends brothers gets sick from to much to drink and ends up falling in the river multiple times. The river is still really cold and we end up having to split up and she takes her brother to get a ride back to the campsite at the halfway point. Then I was stuck with her friends that I didn't really know; to get back to the campsite with the canoes. I had met these friends about a half dozen times and they had struck me as rude and irresponsible but I hadn't spent much time with them. The boyfriend actually had never spoken directly to me at this point even though we had met several times.
I had been told by my ex over and over again how the boyfriend was abusive and how terrible he was to her friend. I told her since I hadn't seen anything I didn't want to be involved. On the second half of the trip her best friend and her boyfriend get into an argument over something. To this day I have no idea what either of them were upset about. This argument keeps escalating but only to yelling and throwing stuff and essentially a temper tantrum on the part of the boyfriend. We get back to the campsite and reunite with my ex, and they keep arguing and yelling at each other. Keep in mind the girl has been carrying around a two year old for this entire ordeal.
Eventually the boyfriend is in his vehicle shouting obscenities' and my exes friend goes to his vehicle and what happens next is the only point of disagreement between myself and my ex. I say he hit her, my ex says he pushed her out of the way. Tomato, tomato, it was still most definitely physical assault of a dating partner and since she had the toddler it was also child abuse. My exes mom then intervenes and they separate, I go over to the girl to ask if she's is alright and she starts asking me to fight her boyfriend. Then the boyfriend threatens to shoot me!!!?????
Keep in mind this guy has never spoken to me directly. As a side note I have trained MMA for over five years at this point and it is well known that I can fight. Normally fighting/sparring is very fun for me but if this dude is actually upset and not wanting to wrestle around for fun then I was going to need him to sign a waiver before I administered the beat down. Besides the dude had a gun and had threatened to shoot me so I'm not just going to attack him?
I tried to tell my ex that we needed to leave but she refused and said that if I wanted to leave I was more than welcome but that she would be staying. I decide to stay, and the rest of the night essentially consisted of her best friend wandering around the campground crying hysterically and the boyfriend posted in his vehicle between us and the exit in some kind of sad attempt to be intimidating. At one point while my ex and her friend attempt to console the boyfriend they essentially left the child unsupervised with me and her friends neighbors.
Both of the neighbors were under 21 and definitely to intoxicated to supervise a toddler. To be honest no one there was sober enough to care for a two year old at that time. At one point I actually stopped the toddler from running into the fire while my ex and her friend made the boyfriend food. (which I bought by the way) Literally the guy assaulted his girl, threatened to shoot me, and put his child in danger and my girlfriends reaction was to make him a hamburger. I was thrown.
Towards the end of the night its starting to calm down and I was coming back from collecting firewood. The boyfriend had moved his vehicle closer to the campsite but was still not interacting with the rest of the group. When I get back my exes friend is blocking my chair so I grab another from my trunk and offer it to her so I can sit down next to my girlfriend. Apparently the boyfriend was offended by this and actually spoke to me directly for the first time by stating that I needed to pay attention to my girl and if I talked to his again he would shoot me.
I had no idea how to react; this is now the second time this dude has threatened my life with a firearm and both times with no reaction from anyone. I tell my ex again that we need to leave and I was once again dismissed. Keep in mind there is no signal at this campground; so we are completely cut off from the outside world. It was already late so everyone turned in for the night shortly after. The next morning we pack up the campsite to go home.
When we get back to my apartment, I confirm with my ex everything that happened. She did confirm that the boyfriend had threatened to shoot me twice. Like I said earlier; I say he hit his girl my ex says he pushed her out of the way. Whatever; same difference. She also confirmed she understood that because the toddler was there it made everything that happened an act of child abuse. My goal for the conversation was to get my ex to report what happened so I could sit in the background and just confirm what she was saying was true.
However, my ex just kept trying to say that this was normal behavior by her friends boyfriend and that she wasn't going to do anything. I tried to reiterate over and over that this was not "Normal" behavior and that by not reporting what happened we could be considered liable if something worse happened in the future. I am not a mandated reporter but, I clearly understood that if I was; what happened would have been a mandatory report.
My ex then blew up at me and accused me of being and asshole and trying to isolate her from her friend. This was the farthest thing from the truth; since when I was told the boyfriend was abusive, I told my ex since I hadn't seen anything I couldn't do anything but, if her friend had no where to go and wanted to leave she was more than welcome to crash in my spare room. I had to go to work to get ready for the upcoming week so I couldn't keep arguing with her and started getting ready to head out. I told her we would discuss it when I got back and left for work. While I was showering I did consider kicking her out for not taking what happened more seriously but, I decided against it because overall I still liked her at that point and I didn't want her not to have anywhere to go.
While I am at work I text her an apology because admittedly I was mean at the end when she wouldn't take what happened seriously. I told her I still didn't know exactly what I needed to do but that the boyfriends behavior was completely unacceptable. She texts me back that she was breaking up with me and going to stay with her brother. I was a little shocked by this as we had not had any disagreements up until this point and I pressed her to figure out why. At first she lied and tried to say it had nothing to do with the argument and was because she wasn't ready for a relationship. I moved past the fact we had already been in a relationship for two months, she had me in her phone as daddy, was living with me, and had started receiving mail at my apartment and just accepted that she wanted to leave.
When I got back to my apartment a couple of hours later she had already packed her stuff and left. I was sad but I have been through a lot of breakups with women I liked so this wasn't new to me. I started going through my apartment to make sure all my stuff was still there and her stuff was gone. I did reach out to here that night because I wanted her to come get the stuff she had left and at least give me the opportunity to speak my peace in person. At this point I still thought she left because she wasn't ready for a relationship and that she was at her brothers.
At the end of the night, I called her expecting her to be at her brothers, she answered and instead I found out she was at her friends? Yes the one with the boyfriend who had just threatened to shoot me, had assaulted her friend, and put his child in clear danger due to his emotional tantrum. This was the only time I truly snapped at her because I couldn't believe she would do something like that. Two things became clear to me 1.) She never cared about me and was just using me for a free place to stay and free food. Which honestly I wouldn't have cared about if she had just been honest about it. And 2.) She was no longer a witness to what had happened, she was an accessory as she was actively trying to deter me from reporting the behavior.
My understanding of the statues around child abuse is that any action taken in an attempt to conceal child abuse makes you an accessory to said child abuse. Because of all that the feelings I had for her immediately died. I decided to sleep on everything and the next day I wrote out everything that happened and emailed it myself to time stamp the report. I gave it to a coworker that I trusted just to confirm I wasn't crazy. She is a mandated reporter and her words to me were that I absolutely did need to report what happened and that if I didn't she would. So I got the number that I needed to call from my coworker and filed a police report at my local police station. A few days later CPS did pay them a visit and I received a lot of nasty texts accusing me of filing the report because she broke up with me and intentionally trying to get the child taken by child services.
She even tried to say she wanted to get back together later when she was "in a better headspace" I called bullshit because to me and everyone I have told this story to she broke up with me in order to avoid the confrontation and distract me from making the report. Her admission confirmed that her plan was to come back when I had forgotten about what had happened. I quickly told her coming back was not an option for her and that I was not interested in her anymore. AITAH?
Also an update that happened last week, some different friends of my ex reached out to me on FB. I had only met these friends once so I was suspicious as to why they reached out. They did invite me over and looking back I think they were just wanting to get the full scoop on what happened as my ex had told them virtually nothing and had been overly vague as to why we had broken up.
I told them the full story to the best of my ability and they confirmed that similar incidents had happened in the past with the couple and that they do not associate with my exes friends due to the boyfriends behavior. I also learned that apparently one of my exes brothers was on my side and thought his sister was a "fucking idiot."
My exes friends apologized to me and expressed their support and agreed I did the right thing. NGL finding that out did really validate me because it was clear to me my ex was trying to protect her friends abuser but I still didn't understand why. What I have tried to believe, in order to not have so much negative emotion towards my ex, is that in her mind she feels like if she is there with her friend she will be safe. Also if anybody asks the neighbors would be shit witnesses to what happened, they were both under 21, highly intoxicated, and while I'm not sure what they are on narcotics wise. I am 90% sure they get it from the boyfriend. I apologize if this was to long of a read but AITAH?

TW: Alcoholism, drug addiction, violence, suicidal ideation, sex abuse
This is going to be a LLLLLOOONNNNGGGGG one. This story goes back quite a way, but yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the ending to this story and I'm feeling it, still got some guilt about everything that happened, wondering what I could have done differently and I just want to vent it out and hope to get some closure from it.
This story started in 2010.
Characters in this story (names are fake, duh!):

• Me, Guy, 32M at the time, 45 now.
• My BFF Stephanie, 33F at the time.
• Stephen, 40M at the time, Stephanie's boyfriend.
• Maryse, 27F at the time.

Background and intro
I had known Stephanie for many years and we had the kind of friendship that made her BFs and my GFs uncomfortable to put it lightly. We had never crossed that boundary and I wouldn't consider us in the friendzone, we were just friend, but the kind of friend where she would sit on my lap with her arms around my neck or her head on my shoulder.
At the start of 2010, Stephanie met her then boyfriend, Stephen. He tolerated me and my friendship with Stephanie because I also had a gf back then. She liked Stephanie, wasn't at all jealous of my friendship with her, so he didn't deem me too suspicious. Then my gf and I broke up for reasons unimportant and all hell broke loose for Stephen. He became convinced that I would try and steal Stephanie from him. He insisted that Stephanie introduce me to her female friends or female friends of his. Thus began what I called the year of the 50 blind dates. It was probably closer to 20, but still I like saying the year of 50 blind dates. Most of them were unremarkable and never went beyond the first date. There are some fun stories in there if anyone wants to hear them eventually!
In July of that year, I had to switch gears because I had to focus up and study for a professional exam for a certification important to my career. This exam required close to 600-800 hours of study over a 3-4 month period. So I hunkered down, told Stephanie to stop the blind dates for now because I had to focus on that. She respected my wishes and, other a text here or there, we went low contact for the last two months before the exam.
Except for one fateful night in September. Her birthday was in September and she always threw these big bashes at her house. She would throw a big pool party that started around noon and would go on to the wee hours of the morning. I knew she would harass me to go to her party, so I made some quick math and figured I would lose more energy and time trying to dodge her calls, texts and most likely visits at my place than by just going to the party itself. So when she called me to ask, I just said: "Okay I'll go to your damn party, now git." I texted her I would get there in the evening probably around 8. She texted back "Great, can't wait. Now study, bitch!"
So I ultimately get there around 8PM. Basically everybody is already drunk off their gourd. Stephanie sees me, squeals in excitement and runs to me in her bikini and just jumps in the air and slams into me, wraps her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist and gives me a big hug. I hug her back and just keep walking back to the pool where she had started, carrying her with me. I just duck my head around hers and say hi to Stephen, who just glares at me.
She drops back down and I give her her gift. We chat for a few seconds and says "There's beer in the fridge and food in the dining room." I told her I'd be right back.
I go inside and grab a beer from the fridge. I head to the dining room and the table is against the wall with a buffet of sandwiches, tomato pizza, salads, etc. I grab a plate and start putting food on it. I was focused on the task because I was starving. I barely noticed, sitting at the end of the table one of the most stunning woman I have ever seen. I just see her in my peripheral vision and I do a quick double take, quick glance at her and back to the food. I do that a second time. And finally a third time. At that point she is just straight up staring at me and I can't help but chuckle and whisper under my breath "Subtle Guy, sub-tle".
Thankfully she starts laughing too, saving me some embarassment. I look at her and greet her. She says "Hi, I'm Maryse and I'm guessing you're Guy?" I just nod and we start talking. At that point, I just thought I have no shot with her, she's so far out of my league that I'm just gonna talk to her until she sees one of the "models" hanging out by the pool and ditches me for him.
So I'm not feeling like I'm playing for anything, so I'm just myself and not nervous, just talking to her as I would any friend. We chat and she laughs at all my jokes, she gets all my cultural references. She never gets up or ditches me. The plate of food I had made and the beer I had gotten are sitting on the table next to me untouched, I was too busy with the convo to think about food or beer anymore.
After what felt like only 20-30 minutes, Stephanie comes in and tells me, fake grumpy: "So that's where you disappeared to. I invite my best friend to a party and he spends the whole night talking to someone else." I laugh and go: "What do you mean the whole night? I haven't been here that long." She says "Dude, it's 2AM. You've been here for 6 hours..." My jaw dropped and I just said: "Wow, time flies when you're having fun." Maryse chimes in, with a big smile: "It sure does!" That made me happy as you can imagine.
Now I was a little stuck because where Stephanie lived, there's no night service for the bus and the subway had been closed for an hour or so. I figured I would cab it. So I turn to Maryse and tell her: "It was absolutely lovely to meet you and I enjoyed our conversation very much." She says that she did too. I continued with "At the moment, my schedule is incredibly hectic. I'm basically working full-time, studying full-time and sleeping part-time. So I don't have a lot of free time, but if she was interested, whatever little free time I had, I would love to call her or text her to keep on getting to know her."
I see Stephanie in the backgroudnd, looking like a proud mama at how smooth that came out, knowing I was always anything but smooth with women, as proven by the string of blind dates! Maryse has a big smile and we exchange numbers. I go to Stephanie to wish her a happy birthday again. While I'm talking to her, my phone buzzes with a text from Maryse: "Just checking!"
I asked Stephanie "What's the best cab company to call in this area?" Maryse chimes in: "Where do you live?" I tell her where I lived and she goes "It's on the way to where I live, I can give you a ride if you want." Stephanie raised an eyebrow in surprise. I learned later, she did it because it absolutely was not on the way to her place, like, at all. I say that I would love that as it would give us a chance to keep talking.
We get in her car, driving to my place. We talk, she asks me what I'm studying as I hadn't mentioned it earlier. I tell her all about the boring maths I had to study. Much too quickly, we get to my place. She parks in front of my building and we keep talking. At some point, I tell her: "Normally, this is where I would try to "trick" you into coming up to my place..." She interrupts me: "You wouldn't need to trick me. I'm willing and able!"
I tell her that "As tempting as that sounds, I know who I am and I know that if you come up and things proceed to where they're going, I'm not going to be able to study for the rest of the month. I have a kind of obsessive mind and when I find someone or something I like, I can push everything else to the side in favor of that. So to make sure I can still focus on my studying, I have to go up by myself."
She looks at me, a little disappointed but then says, half-jokingly: "We don't have to go up, there's a backseat right there!" We laugh and I give her a kiss and wish her a good night. I managed to stay strong and go back to my condo. Damn it, why did I have to stay strong!!!
My exam was at the beginning of november. During the month of october, we texted a bunch of times and talked on the phone. We went for coffee a couple of times and dinner once. She respected my boundaries and never pushed for more, which I appreciated but also hated at the same time, if that makes sense. The exam came and it was a monster of a Friday. I slept for basically 18 hours after the exam as the adrenalin dropped and my system crashed.
I texted her when I woke up at around 1PM. She was working at the clothing store Stephanie owned. She said "I'm off at 5PM, wanna meet me." I said: "Duh! Why do you think I'm texting? ;)" So I met her at the store downtown. I asked if she wanted to grab a drink, go for dinner, or what. She proposed going to her place and getting some take out. Stephanie who was closing the store at that moment, came up to us and said: "Hey, so what are we doing?" I said: "WE, that is Maryse and I, are going to her place and getting some takeout. Bye!" I'm sure you'll understand when I tell you that no food was ever ordered that night!
Thus followed a whirlwind month of November where any free time we had was spent together, and I wasn't going to complain!
The troubles
By the start of december, things were still going great with us. One saturday night, we were having dinner at a restaurant and I mention that this coming Friday is my office Christmas party, that it's employees only, so we wouln't see each other that night. She tells me: "Oh sure, that's fine! It'll give me a chance to go see some girlfriends I've been neglecting lately." I said "Great! BTW I also got us a reservation at [this great restaurant she had mentioned a few times] for next Saturday, so we could go there and I'll tell you all about my party and you can tell me all about her night with the girls!"
That was settled, I thought. I was wrong. On Thursday, we had spent the evening together at her place and I was about to leave to go back to my place. She tells me: "So are you coming to meet me at the store tomorrow or do I go to your place?" I reminded her: "Neither, tomorrow is my office Christmas party and we won't see each other tomorrow." She said: "Oh right, I forgot." I asked her if she had made plans with her friends like she had mentioned last saturday. She said that they were all busy tomorrow and weren't available.
She suggested "If your party is boring, maybe you could come meet me." I retorted that it wasn't going to be, knowing who was going to be there.
"Yeah but what if?"
"But it won't"
"But what IFFFFFF?" she kept insisting and I kept saying no. After what felt like 30 minutes of that (probably only 2-3 minutes in reality), I had enough and just said to end the argument: "Okay, if it's boring, I'll come. but it won't be." She said: "Cool" with a big smile on her face. I came to learn that that smile meant "Challenge accepted".
The following night, my colleague and I were pregaming in a conference room before leaving for the party proper and my phone buzzes. Maryse was wishing me a good party. I replied. She texted me again. I replied. She texted again, but I was in a conversation with a colleague so I didn't reply or even look at the phone. My phone buzzes again. Still talking, and didn't want to be rude to my colleague. Another buzz. I just kept talking. Phone buzzes differently, she was now calling because I hadn't answered her texts.
"Why aren't you replying to my texts?"
"Hey, sorry, was talking to my colleague Patrick."
"What? you don't want to talk to me?"
"I am talking to you now."
"Why didn't you reply to my texts?"
"Because it would have been rude to my colleague to pull my phone out while talking to him."
"But you're talking to me now."
"Because I thought something was wrong, maybe it was an emergency."
"I wanted to talk to you, that's all."
"Well, gotta go back to the party. Talk to you later."
She kept texting and if I didn't reply right away, she would call after two or three missed texts. After about 2 hours of this, I stopped answering the texts. When she called back, I asked her: "Aren't you supposed to be working?" which started another round of guilt-tripping of "why are you asking me this? you don't want to talk to me?" At that point I had had enough and wanted to enjoy my party. I remembered that the Blackberry (no shaming old tech!) I had had an annoying feature, but I was hoping to put it to good use at that moment.
Whenever the battery would get really low, like less than 1%, it would let out an ear-piercing BEEP for about 3 seconds, reminiding you to charge it and giving you a heart attack all at the same time. It would do that even when you were in silent mode. It had happened a few days earlier when I was with Maryse. I figured, if I press a button on the Blackberry, it would make a beep too that could be heard through the phone. So while I was talking to Maryse, I pressed my thumb on the space bar for a good 3 seconds and sputtered; "what... the .... what?" trying to put on a somewhat believable performance.
She asked what that noise was and I tell her that it was my blackberry letting me know I was low battery and it might shut off any second. I told her "Listen I'm gonna wish you a good night, I'm having a good time at my party so I'll see you tomorrow at 5PM to go spend our evening together. I hope you have a good....." and hung up mid-sentence. I promptly shut my phone off and went back to the party. I concede that I may be a bit of an AH for that move.
The party was great, I got drunk much quicker than I expected owing to the fact that I hadn't had a drink in over two months because Maryse didn't drink so I didn't either when we were together, and we were always together. At 1AM, I went home and passed out on my bed.
This is another place where I may have been an AH. I didn't turn my cell phone back on and I unplugged my home line too, because I wanted to sleep the deep sleep of the drunkard. I woke up at around 1:30 PM, not knowing it was already too late. In my mind, I was meeting Maryse at 5PM to go out on the town that night. Maryse had other ideas as you'll see.
So like I said, I woke up at 1:30PM and was sticky with alcohol sweat, so I went straight for the shower to get clean again. While in the shower, my stomach grumbled with hunger and I started daydreaming of bacon and eggs. That pushed me out of the shower right quick. I dried myself off quickly, tied the towel around my waist and went to the fridge. No bacon.... booo. Looked at the egg compartment... no eggs... booo again. Okay then, how about a cream cheese bagel. No cream cheese, damn it. Look in the pantry, no bagels.... god. I was starting to get angry. Okay, cereals then. I pick up the cereal box, that mofo was empty and I get mad: "who's the idiot who puts the empty box back in the pantry?" I remembered I live alone.
I close the fridge dejected and see the grocery list stuck on the fridge, taunting me with everything I wanted to eat for breakfast written on it. But I felt like if I went to the grocery store hungry as I Was, I'm just gonna pay 600$ and not get one single healthy thing to eat. I then remembered there's a restaurant next to the grocery store that serves breakfast until 3PM. I get excited! I get dressed quickly, grab my wallet and keys, put my boots on, my coat on, wrap my scarf, my tuque and my gloves and go to the restaurant. If you notice, I didn't mention my phone in there.
I get to the restaurant and confirm that they still have breakfast and get even more excited when she confirms it. I order the "heart attack", at least that's how I nicknamed it: 3 eggs, 3 servings of bacon, 2 sausages, and, I guess to give one peace of mind, fruit (or to be precise, one single solitary slice of orange). Now that the food is ordered and coming I figured I would check if I have any messages. I pat the pocket where my phone always is. No phone. uh-oh. I start clutching evert pocket, no luck.
I wonder if I should go back home after the meal before going to the grocery store and decide against it, it would be too long a detour. So I scarf my breakfast down, rush through the grocery store. I get home and set my bags down in front of the fridge. I go pick up my blackberry. I turn it back on. The little tape icon tells me there are messages on my voicemail, at that time there were no red dots with a number in it to tell you how many.
I connect to the voicemail while starting to put the groceries away. The little automated voice tells me "You have 25 new messages." I pull the phone away from my ear, look at it in disbelief as if saying: "are you f'ing kidding me?" So I press 1 to start playing the messages.
Remember: Maryse knew I was at a party with a dead phone, no chargers and I probably wouldn't get home until 1AM. From 6:30PM, when my phone died, to 11:34 PM, when she went to sleep she left me 9 messages. BTW I know she went to sleep at 11:34PM because she left me a message saying "it's 11:34PM and I'm going to bed. Thinking of you." The 9 messages were in the same vein. These are the salient details, but the messages were all much longer.
She woke up at 7:15 the following day, I'll let you guess how I know that tidbit of information! She left me 5 more messages like those from the day before: 7:15 woke up. 7:35 going to take a shower. 7:55 out of the shower. 8:25 getting ready to leave for work 8:50 walking out of the subway to go to the store.
She leaves me another message at 9 that was different. She sounded very excited as if she had had the best idea in the world: "Hey it's 9AM, I'm about to start my shift. I know we're only supposed to meet after my shift, but what if you came and met me for lunch so you could tell me all about your party." I just did my best Scooby-Doo "Ruh-Roh" and chuckled that I blew that, not thinking the calamity that was awaiting me.
Another couple of messages to talk logistics: "I could take my lunch at 12 or 12:30, let me know which you prefer." "I'm taking my lunch at 12:30"
A slightly worried message: "It's 11:15 and you stil have not said if you were coming or not, are you okay?"
The first bomb goes off and I knew I was in trouble then: "Where are you? We're supposed to meet for lunch and you still haven't given me any sign of life, you're not answering your home phone either, what happened?" Reminder: we were not supposed to meet for lunch, she suggested doing so a couple of hours earlier and I never agreed to anything. I guess she told her colleagues I would meet her for lunch and it was now fact and could perhaps make her look bad in front of her colleagues.
The second bomb drops: "It's almost noon now, WHERE ARE YOU? Stephanie says you're probably sleeping off your drunk, but I don't believe her. I'm sure you got yourself a slut and cheated on me. Didn't you? didn't you, you asshole." Stephanie knows me very well, but that wasn't enough for Maryse it seems.
Ensued four more messages from 12:30 to 1:15, where she starts sounding more and more drunk and accusatory, spewing more attacks like in the message above. At that point I already knew it was over, there was no coming back from that. I can understand having trust issues, but that was nuclear. I don't tolerate jealousy because of horrible experiences with a couple of jealous toxic exes.
A final message comes in, and it's a different voice, that of my best friend being more than a little angry: "Hey Guy, listen, Maryse tells me you had a Christmas party yesterday, so I'm guessing you're sleeping off your drunk, still. But call me when you get this. I put Maryse, who's f'ing drunk, in the backstore so she can dry off and "do inventory". She can't be on the sales floor obviously and I just don't feel safe sending her home in the state she's in. Call me to tell me how you want to handle this."
At that point I had finished putting away my groceries and had put my boots and my coat on and was making my way to the subway to go to the store. I call Stephanie and tell her I got the messages and I was coming. She was right, I was sleeping off my drunk and had just woke up (didn't feel the need to mention the breakfast and grocery store). I ask her if she knows what I'm gonna do when I get there. She says that she knows and understands. She knows my bad history.
When I get out of the subway, I call her again before getting to the store. I ask her how she wants me to do this. It's her store and I don't want to create drama in front of her customers. Does she want me to wait outside and she tells Maryse to meet me in the street or do I go in the store and she takes me to the backstore and I do it there? She says to come to the store.
I walk in the store and every saleswomen on the floor looks at me and gives me the biggest case of the stink-eye. They only have Maryse's side of the story, so they think I did all these horrible things. I see Stephanie in the middle of the store and I walk towards her. She shakes her head and points me towards the cash register. I look over there and see Julia, a salesperson that I've known for a couple of years and really like, who also happens to be the biggest gossip in the store. I understand what Stephanie is trying to do. She's gonna make me tell her my story in front of Julia so Julia can spread the "good news" to the other employees and rehabilitate my name possibly.
So I get to the register and say Hi to Julia. She barely acknoledges me. Steph joins me. She asks me:
"How are you?"
"I was better an hour ago, before I listened to those voicemails. I had gone to our office party last night, had a great night, got drunk off my ass, got home at around 2 and woke up around 2."
Julia asks "Maryse told us you were supposed to meet her for lunch."
"No we weren't. I have a reservation for tonight at XYZ restaurant. I was supposed to take the day to do errands, stuff around the condo and meet her here at closing time. She suggested that it could be fun if I came at lunchtime to meet her, but that was never the plan."
Julia asks again "But why didn't you answer your phone?"
"It ran out of battery last night during the party and when I got home, I was so drunk that I forgot to plug it back in. I only plugged it when I woke up at 2. That's when the messages came in."
Julia asks "She says she tried calling your home line and you didn't answer and your machine didn't kick in."
"Yeah, that one's my fault, I knew I wanted to sleep and telemarketers have a habit of calling me early saturday mornings so I didn't want to be awoken by a call for a rug cleaning service, so I unplugged it yesterday morning, knowing I would be drunk when I got home and forget and be angry if I was awakened by a telemarketer."
Julia gave me a hint of a smile, showing me she was starting to believe me. She asked me a few more questions and then she asked what I was gonna do. I told her that whatever I'll do, I would tell Maryse first.
I looked at Stephanie and said: "Can you open the back store so I can go see her?" So we went to the backstore. As we reached the door, it swung opened and out popped Maryse, looking absolutely terrifying, I actually jumped back when I saw her. Her usual perfect makeup was completely smeared, her mascara streaking down her cheeks from the crying. Her hair was disheveled. She was a mess. Apparently, she had had enough of waiting back there and was planning on leaving the store to go home and had put her coat and boots on.
When she saw me, she went into an unhinged rant about me being an asshole for cheating on her, me not being great in bed, me not treating her right, etc. I let her vent everything she had to say, I looked at Stephanie and apologized for creating such a scene in her store. I tell Maryse we should go outside and talk in private. She keeps on yelling, but when I grab her hand to lead her outside, she follows.
When we get outside, her anger had started to wane a little, or maybe just her energy. I was able to talk to her to explain everything, how I had gotten drunk, had overslept (alone) and woke up at 2PM. I reminded her that we were only supposed to meet at 5PM not for lunch. The anger was leaving her and a smile almost appeared on her face. Through all of this I was being very calm and patient with her, which she interpreted as me not being mad at her. I then said in a firmer tone: "However..." and let it hang for a second.
The beginning smile vanished. I continued: "When you accused me of cheating on you, that broke me. That triggered memories of toxic exes who would always accuse me of cheating, not trusting me when I would tell them where I was, snooping on me, stalking me. Because of those experiences, I have a zero tolerance policy for jealousy. I told her that if she was behaving like after only two months of dating, it didn't bode well for the future and I have to protect myself."
At that, the tears started again and she just turned and ran/waddled away. I told her to wait, but she didn't hear me. I turned towards the entrance of the store to see basically all the employees and customers milling around the door trying to catch the drama. I went back inside to talk to my best friend. The mood had definitely changed and no one was giving me the stink eye anymore, but I didn't really care. I was just sad that it had ended, but proud of myself for having stood up for myself.
So AITA for getting drunk and keeping my phone turned off?
There is a lot more to this story and if you want to learn what happened afterwards, then read on.
The immediate aftermath
So I went back inside the store and talked to Stephanie. I told her that I had a reserrvation for XX restaurant and if she wanted to go with Stephen, she could take it, I wasn't in the mood for a dinner. She said "I already have plans for tonight, but thanks for offering." Julia said she would go with me if I wanted, but I just said that I wasn't in the mood to go out. I just wanted to crash and eat a pizza and get into a food coma.
Stephanie said she didn't feel comfortable leaving me by myself and I should join them at her house. They were having friends over to play board games and it could at least distract me a little. I said why not. So brimming with enthusiasm, I went to play bored games. I left early as I wasn't in the mood. I was feeling a little better, but still a bit down. I thanked Stephanie for the invite and left. I got home and just passed out on the bed.
I woke up at around 7AM the next morning and I saw along the corners of the window the tell-tale signs of a snow-drift and got excited as it was the first snow of the season. I pushed the curtains aside and looked on to see a beautiful white carpet outside. It was early enough that very few cars had marred the whiteness. I was admiring it when I noticed that, against the red bricks of the building across the street, there was a pink blotch. As I focused, the blotch became human shaped and I cleared my eyes enough to realize that it was Maryse and she was raising her cell phone to her ear.
On cue, my phone rings. I pick it up. Still sounding drunk, she asks me if we can speak. I ask her to give me five minutes to get dressed and I'll meet her down there. She asks why she can't come up. I say that I'm not sure I want her in my apartment. She says that it's cold out. I say: "Good, then this will be quick."
I get dressed and meet her outside. I'm still bleary-eyed from having woken up 5 minutes ago, but I try to get my wits together. I tell her that we're going to walk to the subway. It 's a 10-minute walk normally, but with her drunkenness, it might take 15-20 minutes. That's how long she has to tell me what she wants to tell me.
She wants to apologize for accusing me of cheating on her. She says she knows I'm a great guy and... I may be the A-hole at this point too, but I start to drift off in my little bubble and start daydreaming about, if I go back to bed, would there still be some residual heat or would it be cold? I could take a hot shower and warm the bed that way. I could still hear her in the background making excuses, saying how she had been cheated on, but I wasn't really listening.
During the daydreaming I notice it got quite quiet. I look on my left and she's not there, I turn around she's a good 5-6 steps behind me looking angry and she says: "you're not listening" I just say: "when you're right, you're right." I tell her that I understand she's been hurt too in the past, and I hope she can work to resolve her issues, but I was done and I'm going back to bed. I was a bit harsh there, but I was tired and still down.
I walk past her and get maybe 10 paces past her when I hear a scream coming from her. I turn around and I see her messing with something inside her coat. She pulls out a chef's knife with like an 8-inch blade. That wakes me the fuck up. Byebye bleary eyes, hello wakefulness. better than a cup of coffee or a red bull I tell you!
So she's got the knife, she's screaming something that I can't quite understand. She gets quiet and then she charges at me with the knife. If I'm being honest I could have stayed where I was and she probably would have missed me anyways, but someone charges at me with a knife, I'm gonna nope out of there. I take a massive side step and once she gets to where I was and realizes that I'm no longer there, she turns her head towards me and says heyyyyy.
At that point, I have a moment of clarity and see what's gonna happen. She's drunk running one way and looking another, I know she's gonna trip. As I predicted, she stumbled over her feet and starts falling to the ground. I start praying to god and anybody who would listen: "Please don't let her cut herself. I don't want to have to explain this to the doctors, EMTs and nurses. I don't want her drunk ass deciding to take revenge on me by saying I did it."
Thankfully, she winds up in a sitting position on the sidewalk holding the knife up and it was clean. Thank god for small miracles. She starts crying and, other moment of clarity, I know she's gonna turn the knife on herself now. I jump towards her and I realize I was right, the knife starts moving towards her left wrist. I tackle her, grab her right wrist and twist it so she drops the knife. I pick the knife back up and put it in my pocket. She looks at me crying and says: "Why did you stop me?"
I pick her up and take her back to my building. In my building there was a couch in the lobby, so I take her there and I sit her down and plop myself next to her. I look at her and wonder out loud: "What am I gonna do with you? What can I do?"
She goes: "Just let me go, I'll be good." I tell her that's not going to happen. I realize I have three options and I give her the three options.
"So here's the choice I give you.
1- I pull out my phone, call 911 and tell them about the attempted murder back there and they send the police to arrest you. I don't want to do that because that could derail your life and not get you the help you need. Besides, they might not do anything anyway as it's your word against mine.
2= I pull out my phone, call 911 and tell them about the attempted suicide back there and that you need to be placed on a 72 hour hold. I could do that, but at the same time, again it's my word against yours, so maybe they don't believe me.
3- I'm gonna hazard a guess here. From what I've seen, you have alcohol problems. So I'm gonna guess you were in AA, had been sober for a while, I want to say 6 months, maybe less, when we met."
She confirms my guess.
"alright so option 3, I'm guessing you had a sponsor in AA." she nods "we call them up and tell them about your relapse and what happened this morning. Can they come get you and take care of you?"
She takes her phone out and picks a contact and calls. She hands me the phone. Someone answers and I explain the situation. They said they were coming right away. I give them my address, they get here 15 minutes later. Maryse had fallen asleep in the meantime, so I wake her up gently and help her to the car. Off she went.
I went back to my apartment and just crashed back to sleep.
A month later
Mid-january, my phone rings and I see Maryse's number on there. I send her to voice mail. Another call. Voicemail again. 5 minutes later, Private number calling. "Gee I wonder who that could be." Voicemail once more.
Afterwards, I didn't get any unidentified callers for a little over a week. One afternoon, I was at work and my phone rings and it's a number I do not recognize. I pick up.
"Hello."
"Hi, is this Guy?"
"Yes, to whom am I speaking?"
"This is Hannah, Maryse's sponsor. we spoke last month." I started fearing the worst.
"Yes, I remember. How can I help you?"
"Maryse tried to reach you last week and you rejected the calls. I think it could help Maryse if you listened to what she had to say. You're obviously not obligated to entertain her, but I think despite everything that happened, you still care about her or you would not have called me that morning."
"You are right, I do still care about Maryse. I'm just not sure how good it would be for her to meet me this soon after everything that happened. I understand wanting to work through the 9th step and making amends, but..." She interrupts me.
"So you know about the steps."
"Yes I have friends in the program. which is how I could guess that she was in the program too that morning."
"You know it's important."
"I know. I know. How about this: we meet in public at a cafe, you would have to be there. Not necessarily at the table with us, but nearby in case she needs help, in case meeting me causes her pain. Tell her I promise to be in a more receptive mood than I was that morning."
So we make an appointment for that saturday afternoon.
I get to the coffee shop. She's already there, and so is her sponsor. I realize happily that she's not wearing makeup. I say happily because that means she understands that this is not a date, but something serious. She's still stunningly beautiful, and I feel sad almost right away.
I grab a coffee and go join her at the table.
"Hey" I say,
"Hey. So this is gonna be uncomfortable, but thank you for agreeing to meet me and for coming, I appreciate it more than you know. I'm sure you heard I quit the store."
"I have, I'm sorry about that, I hope you didn't do it just because of me."
"No, I needed time to focus on myself for now."
She proceeds to tell me about how I wasn't far off with my guess. She had been sober 4 months when we met. Now she had 39 days. She tells me that in AA, if you are single, they recommend not dating anyone new for at least the first year of your sobriety as it can cause issues, similar to what happened with us. I was like her "drug" and as long as I was available, she could get her fix. But the moment I wasn't available all hell broke loose, and that is what led her back to drinking that day.
I told her I'm glad to see her back sober again this quickly and I hope she can get all the help she needs from it. I ask her if she wants to talk to me about her drinking.
She starts to share a story about how she started drinking at around 11 years old. When puberty hit her, she got into a deep depression because the sexual feelings she was starting to feel were triggering responses. As a child she had been abused by two of her uncles repeatedly and her parents never believed her. They accused her of trying to make herself interesting. That was until they caught one of those uncles red-handed.
They finally believed and took the necessary steps to protect their daughter. But they were poor and they couldn't afford therapy. So she never really got help for it. At 11, she started self medicating the depression with alcohol. When alcohol wasn't enough, she added drugs.
At that point, I was full on crying. She asked me if I wanted her to stop. I told her that she doesn't have to stop. That the tears are there because that was one more thing we had in common. I was also a survivor of sexual assault as a child. In my case, it wasn't a family member, it was only a stranger, so it only happened once. But I also self-medicated with alcohol at the onset of puberty, switching to drugs later on too. I was lucky to avoid the pitfalls of addiction, but I was still dealing with my demons, slowly making peace with them.
So there we were, sitting at a coffee shop, both crying and holding each other. I tell her that I think it's great she's getting help for her alcoholism and addicion, but was she doing anything to help with the underlying issue, the original trauma? She said no, she couldn't afford therapy. I tell her that I am a member of a survivors group and if she is interested, I could get her into a meeting and perhaps learn to heal that part of herself too.
She said that she could give it a try. I tell her I have to talk to the other members to know if I can bring someone new and I would let her know. If they said yes, we would go to her first meeting together, I would introduce her and then we would coordinate so that I never went to meetings where she was. I wanted to do that because I wanted her first few meetings to be about healing and I didn't want our own history to be intertwined or mixed in with that.
After that, we left both feeling content and, while not necesarily happy, at peace if you will. Later on, I contacted Stephanie who was one of the "pillars" of the support group (that's how we met) to ask her if it was okay for me to bring in a new member to the group. She said sure. She asked if it was anyone she knew. I told her she would have to meet her at the meeting if she decides to come.
We were having a meeting the following day. I called Maryse, told her the time and place, and she said she would be there. She came to the group meeting and was shocked to see Stephanie there but Stephanie kinda guessed that it was Maryse I was referring to.
I introduce her, we start sharing stories, talking about how we're feeling, etc. The meeting was good and Maryse liked the vibe. So for the first six months after that, I never saw Maryse and we planned which meeting we would be attending to ensure we didn't cross paths. She started feeling much better.
After maybe 2 and a half years, she finally felt ready and she started dating again. She met someone and she fell for him. They were together for about six months, she looked happy. Unfortunately after about six months, she caught him cheating on her. We tried supporting her, being good friends, cursing his name, doing all the things we could to make sure she didn't relapse. But on April 5th 2014, she ODed on heroin. She was hospitalized for 2 weeks after that.
Hannah took her in and she set up a room for Maryse. She was still in a fragile state, so a group of her friends and I started taking turns watching over Maryse, making sure there was always at least one person there with her to keep her company.
Despite our vigilance, on May 14th 2014, when Hannah was out running a quick errand, she was gone maybe 15 minutes tops, Maryse found a way to cut her wrists and she died. We found a note saying that "the OD was not an accident, and neither was that. Thanks for everything you did for me. I love you all, but I can't do this anymore."
It feels good to write that story (I'll just ignore the fat tears rolling down my face!). Thanks for reading this far and sorry for the long story, I just started writing and couldn't stop. I apologize if it was a bit of a bummer.

hi, im 17 f who went through a tonsillectomy on may 1st due to having inflamed tonsils on and off for over a year. throughout my recovery i would go on here to read peoples experiences so i wanted to share mine.
day 1 (surgery day): after the surgery, the pain was a 2/10 hence being on anesthesia. i talked directly after the surgery; it only felt a bit uncomfortable. once i got home, i took 2 tylenol and ate tomato soup.
day 2: i had a small fever at midnight which was so horrible…. i did take 2 tylenol to be able to sleep. once i woke up, pain was really starting to kick in, 6/10. id describe the pain as a VERY awful strep throat. it honestly just really hurts to swallow. i ate left over tomato soup for breakfast. mashed potatoes for lunch and dinner. i tried hydrocodone but i had such a bad experience with it (i felt so nauseous and was shaking really badly) so i decided to not take it at all for the rest of my recovery.
day 3: the pain was so bad i deadass was begging to be killed, 8/10 (dramatic ik). i was struggling to eat my food that i ended up crying. i wasnt eating or drinking enough fluids that i felt so weak and nauseous. i am not kidding when i say this, EAT YOUR FOODDDD!!!!!! even though it hurts to swallow trusttttt meeeeee, itll all be worth it in the end.
day 4: I SNEEZED for the first time and i felt like my entire throat was about to go up on flames!!!!! for breakfast i ate left over mac n cheese. for lunch i attempted eating a sandwich (no crusts, SOFT bread, mayo, and ham) and it went pretty fine. make sure to REALLY chew down your food!! pain was about a 6/10
day 5: the pain was incredibly manageable 2/10 in the morning although during the afternoon things started getting a bit bad…... 7/10. in the morning and dinner i ate some mac n cheese yet again and downed it with some cold gatorade. i started getting some teethaches but it seemed to be normal since its part of the nerves connected to the tonsils (or where they used to be lol)
day 6: 12/10. woke up in excruciating pain. i was aware that things were about to get really horrible. seeing as peoples worst days ranged from day 5 to day 9. i took my usual intake of tylenol. i barely ate anything because the pain was just horrible. drinking wategatorade was such a pain as well. the right side of my throat seemed to have some blood coming out (it wasn’t too much but it made me worry a bit).
day 7: kept waking up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. pain was about 8/10. checked my throat and the blood on the right side was completely gone. scabs are starting to form. started to crave hard foods (the struggle is unreal). whenever id drink water, gatorade or chew on popsicles, my throat would BURN.
day 8: i slept for an entire night straight without waking up once in the middle of the night. i say that is PROGRESS!!!! when i woke up the pain was not so bad 3/10. i was craving taco bell so i got a beefy 5 layer burrito since i know their burritos are soft!!! it was THE BEST ive eaten since this recovery im telling you omg… i drank a whole water bottle afterwards too… pain feels mild, not unbearable or unused too.
day 9-14: 4/10 throughout these days!! been able to sleep without any struggles. ive also been eating somewhat solids things like sandwiches, pizzas, hot chips (dyanmites, hot fries). yawnings, sneezing, and burping have been my hell.
i want to say that although i was SOMEWHAT just fine using tylenol, it might not be the case for everyone else. the same goes for food, i know some people don’t do well with dairy based foods such as mac n cheese. eat what you feel most comfortable eating but make sure it is soft and mild cold (do NOT eat anything hot/hard/spicy/salty/sugary)! i know its hard for people to talk during this but i talked the majority of my recovery (nurses encouraged it). id also like to note that id randomly eat ice pops and put an ice pack under my chin. id keep track of taking 2 tylenol every 4-5 hours (i recommend that you do as well because its literal hell when you dont). everyone deals with pain differently. just know you’ll be okay and all this pain you’re going through right now will all be worth it in the end.

Growing season is here, and I'm excited to grow some more of my own food this summer. My brother is also growing some veggies/berries and we're going to exchange.
I'd like to start a discussion around edible gardens and growing food at home, especially for people like me who are growing on a balcony or other non-ideal space.
I'm doing the typical tomatoes and herbs, and this year I'm going to try potatoes in pots and mushrooms indoors. I got a lions mane mushroom starter.
What are you growing at home? Is this your first summer?
Are you part of any local veggie swaps with friends/family?
What do you do about rabbits and other pests?
General tips we can all share to help each other?

Update post on my progress and protocols for my treatment with side effects and how I managed it all.
Now that I'm done with treatment, I hope that this can help others who may be starting the same journey and have questions. I attribute my easy time to the premeds and my mental willpower. I focus on the positives and silver linings over the negatives. You can only control one thing -- your reactions. The rest requires you to practice acceptance.
Diagnosis: Stage 2 Endocervical Adenocarcinoma Gastric Type with LVSI
Treatment Plan: Surgery (cervix, uterus, and ovaries) followed by concurrent Chemo with Radiation with a PET Scan scheduled 2 months after treatment to determine if NED or more treatment is required.
I was scheduled for 6 chemo cycles, once a week, and 28 radiation beam therapies. Chemo happened on Monday and Radiation was Monday through Friday. I had to skip Cycle 3 on Chemo only because I was hospitalized with Norovirus and my counts were too low. I still did radiation those days.
Chemo Protocol in order of meds:

1. Magnesium Sulfate + Potassium Chloride. Cisplatin strips this from your body, supplements.
2. Emend (Fosaprepitant) - antiemetic. I had to get a port for this, it burned my arm vein and I had to use other arm for Chemo, no fun.
3. Aloxi (Palonosetron) - antiemetic.
4. Decadron (Dexamethasone) - steroid. It burns in your nether region, if it burns too much, ask them to push it slower.
5. Lasix (Furosemide) - diuretic. Cisplatin is hard on kidneys, this is to help purge the chemo faster. Be close to a bathroom and ask nurse if you can just unplug your IV pole and go to bathroom freely vs. pushing call button -- its easier.
6. Cisplatin (Platinol) 70mg (my dose). Didn't make me feel any different than the other infusions.

Plan for at least 5 hours for the above. I started at 7:30am and ended between 12 and 12:30pm.
Cisplatin Symptoms: This is going to vary person to person and you may get different premeds than me.

• Mon (Day 1) - just the cold feeling in your veins from all the fluid infusions. You also gain like 5lbs of water weight that day. I was typically ravenous and ate whatever I wanted, the antiemetics made this possible. Be wary of constipation from chemo, it took me by surprise the first week. The other weeks I ate a few prunes on Sunday and then after chemo on Monday to help. Otherwise you won't poop for a week and be miserable.
• Tues (Day 2) - no appetite and I don't eat. Even marijuana does not work to stimulate. I'll force myself if DH forces me, but since I eat everything in sight Day 1 I'm not too hard on myself. Important to have first BM this day, if nothing then you need to start addressing. Of course I BM daily so this may not apply to you.
• Wed - Thu (Day 3 - 4) - acid reflux and indigestion. Keep some Tums handy or use pills, it doesn't really help and you get used to it. All in, better than throwing up, so take it as a win if this is the worst for you. Appetite back.
• Fri - Sun (Day 5 -7) - less side effects, should be at normal BMs, if you are not you need to address for next cycle. Very important to purge your bowels if you are constipated before your next chemo. I ended up doing Miralax my first week, I had zero BM before Sat and I could feel the pressure. The following weeks I just did a handful of prunes Sunday night after dinner and Monday when I got home from chemo. I happen to like prunes and they worked to keep me regular.

Pelvic Radiation Symptoms: This is going to be different based on what areas are treated. My bladder, vagina, and pelvic nodes were heavily treated. Be sure you understand the side effects before you start treatment - so you can be on top of everything. Below is my experience and I had a fairly easy time of it.

• The fatigue sets in slowly. By week 3/4 I needed 12 hours a night to sleep. Don't ignore this important rest. I adjusted my work schedule from day 1 -- from 7a to 1p Tue - Thu. I didn't work Mon due to Chemo and Fri I had to get labs done and radiation so I worked from 7a to 11am. I did this from day 1 to set the tone with my boss and ensure I had the time needed to rest even if I didn't need it. I ended up working Sat and sometimes Sun to make up for things. I am a WFH executive - right hand of CEO and in charge of operations. Helps to have a great boss pick up the slack and an amazing team who supported me every step of the way.
• Bowels get softer over time, they do not go from hard to diarrhea overnight. If you have diarrhea fast, don't ignore it or let your doctor's ignore. I thought it was the prunes week 2 that did it, no it was norovirus. They didn't catch it until I had a 102 fever week 3 and had to be hospitalized. The chemo constipation masked it during the week.
• AZO is your BEST FRIEND. Take it every day. It is made to as a pain reliever for the bladder. I missed it for a week and paid for it so bad. Do not skip this important drug. I need to keep taking it for a few weeks until the symptoms subside.
• When you go in for your initial telemetry setup for the machines, make sure you are comfortable before they start anything. The moment you lay down on the machine bed, you need to make sure you are in a good position. They used a mold on my legs and I was not in a good position so it really hurt my hips every session thereafter.
• You have to put your hands on your chest. They give a ring, I hated it. I recommend relaxing your shoulders or you'll have a hard time while they do the treatment.
• You get used to the flow. You walk into the treatment room, hop on a bed while two techs adjust you (I had x marks on both hips and belly that they lined up). Then you get a quick CT to ensure your bladder is full and you're in a good position. Adjustments are made as needed. You know when the radiation beam starts because it is the only thing with noise. Don't move until they say you can. Whole thing is 10 mins or less.
• Bladder management is the worst part. You need to have a full bladder for this and as the treatment progresses you will have a harder time determining if your bladder is full or not. Your kidneys will also work slower (I attribute to the chemo) as the weeks go on, so you'll need to drink earlier. I recommend drinking what will fill your bladder two hours before your treatment. It is easier to let of some pressure than it is to fill the bladder. Tea is a natural diuretic and is very helpful to giving your kidneys a boost. I usually drank 20+ oz of Powerade two hours before (chugging), then tea when I arrived (they had fancy machines) and this worked 90% of the time.
• Be wary of foods you eat. I did great until Week 4 when I had lots of stuff with red sauce and it caused gas. I had to pass this gas before they could do my treatment, it was a riot but you don't want your visits to be like that every day. Stay away from tomato products and anything else that gives you even mild gas outside of treatment. It is nearly impossible to pass gas with an overfull bladder.

Nurses are your best friend. Having cancer and going through treatment sucks, but the nurses are there for you and my experience was all-inclusive resort service. Take advantage of the snacks (yes they have ice cream) when you're getting chemo. Don't be shy about asking them about your meds, they did a good job explaining this to me, but I still had questions now and again. It takes a special person to be an oncology nurse and you feel it. It never felt fake or like they were putting on a show/smile just for me. They truly cared. I never want to see them again either way :)
Edited to add: get a port. You will not regret it. I plan on keeping mine for a year after NED, which will require a monthly flush. It makes things so much easier, especially if you have to be hospitalized. I didn't need the numbing cream, it hurts less than the arm pokes for labs and infusions. I asked for mine before chemo and doctor didn't think it was necessary. First treatment proved it was - I had three IV's that day and I'm still suffering from the Emend infusion (not the chemo surprisingly) on my arm. Yes, its surgery but its easy. I had it in place before my 2nd chemo and it was lifechanging. I'd keep it for life it wasn't for the monthly flushes lol, my arm veins were crap to start and the more they are poked the worse they get.

One of the lesser known and discussed components to David Kibbe’s approach to developing an authentic personal style is his color system.
What I think is quite unique about his approach is that it is rooted in color theory. I know that sounds kind of obvious… aren’t all personal color systems rooted in color theory? Not quite in the same way, no.
To go back to the absolute basics of color theory we start with the foundational concept of Primary Colors; Red, Yellow and Blue. Where In color theory; Yellow is Warm, Blue is Cool and Red is Neutral.
Disclaimer: Yes! There’s such thing as a Warm Blue or a Cool Yellow. David gives every season their own version of Yellow and Blue. However, we’re referencing a *pure** version of these colors - not a blend.*
So when we say “cool toned” this means the colors have a blue base since blue is cool. The same can be said for the concept of “warm toned” which means the colors have a yellow base since yellow is warm.
Now, nobody’s skin tone is literally yellow (we’re not lemons) or literally blue (we are not lizards). We are a complex blend of pigments that create a unique mix of tones within our skin, hair and eyes. What we’re looking to determine with our personal coloring here is wether we have a blue (cool) or golden (warm) undertone. With our hair and eyes providing extra clues but our undertone being the most important factor to consider.
Before we launch into the **Metamorphosis excerpt on David’s approach to personal color, I would like to pause and remind us all, that, as with all things Kibbe, it bares reminding that it is essential we leave all prior ideas on colouring aside and approach this process with a sense of playful exploration and curiosity. Our personal coloring just as our Kibbe ID is part of what makes us uniquely beautiful. So it’s not about there being a “correct” or “incorrect” answer. It’s about celebrating what is innate to us.*

Discovering the magic of your coloring

So much has been written in recent years about your coloring and "having your colors done" that I simply can't take you through this journey without a brief detour in this often confusing area.
As a firm believer in the beauty of our natural coloring, I've always felt that it should be enhanced and prized as one of our greatest gifts from Nature. Since I could be described as one of the pioneers of the modern color movement, I've worked long and hard to educate the public about the possibilities and systems that exist to make working with your coloring easy, clear, exciting, and most of all, fun!
In the past few years, I've watched many variations spring up on the basic theme of personal color analysis. As in all extremely popular fields, some of the "new" variations are simply gimmicks de- signed to cash in on the latest fad, while others bear at least some validity.
For my money, however, the basic system of the seasonal color theory originally developed by Johannes Itten of the Bauhaus School is still far and away the most effective.
This theory divides your coloring into four basic categories named after the seasons, based on two parts of your genetic makeup: (1) the undertone of your skin, which is blue or golden and functions as the "base" of your coloring; and (2) the in- tensity of your coloring, which has to do with the type of "contrast" between your hair. skin, and eyes.
Simply put, your "season" is a general description of the type of coloring you inherited and the palette of colors that will enhance it. Each "season" represents a family of colors that consists of over two million shades within the palette. Here's a brief description of each:

Winter

Blue undertone to the skin. High-contrast coloring (distinct difference between the hair, skin, eyes).
Palette: Cool, clear colors. Blue-based shades with sharp intensity. A jewel-toned palette ranging from vivid colors to very pale, icy shades.
Person: The hair is usually dark (a solid color as opposed to visibly highlighted) with an ash base, and the skin and eyes are quite clear.
Celebrities: Elizabeth Taylor, Cher, Diahann Carroll, Connie Chung.

Summer

Blue undertone to the skin. Blended contrast (the hair, skin, eyes tend to blend together).
Palette: Cool, muted colors. Blue- based shades with a saturated intensity. A dusty palette ranging from pastels to very deep shades.
Person: The hair is usually medium dark to medium light (a dense color with a very subtle highlight) with an ash base, and the skin tone is saturated while the eyes are softly muted.
Celebrities: Grace Kelly, Queen Elizabeth, Jane Fonda.

Autumn

Golden undertone to the skin. Contrast is medium to high, but characterized by richness.
Palette: Warm, intense colors. Yellow based shades with a heavy saturation of richness. A fiery palette ranging from very vivid, hot shades to a few softly muted neutrals.
Person: The hair is usually a richly highlighted shade with a red base, ranging from very deep chestnut to fiery auburn to a very deep honey. The skin tone is rich and saturated (ranging from very pale to very deep) and the eyes are a mixture of marbelized color.
Celebrities: Natalie Wood, Ann-Margret, Diane Keaton, Katharine Hepburn, Shari Bela- fonte-Harper.

Spring

Golden undertone to the skin. Contrast is delicate, but sharp.
Palette: Warm and clear colors. Yellow based shades with a light, bright intensity. A vibrant pal ette ranging from very fresh, vivid shades to a few clear pales.
Person: The hair is usually a medium dense shade (with a subtle natural highlight) and a golden or red base, ranging from medium golden brown to strawberry to golden blond. The skin tone is clear and delicate, and the eyes are crisp.
Celebrities; Shirley MacLaine, Sissy Spacek, Vanessa Williams, Arlene Dahl, Eva Gabor.

Draping the Seasons

Question: How can I determine my "season"? Can I tell by just looking at myself in the mir ror? Can I tell by looking at the underside of my wrists?
Not really. The best way to objectively determine your season is with the help of three or four friends. To correctly determine your season, you've got to first determine both the undertone of your skin (blue or golden), and then the type of contrast between your hair, skin, and eyes. The only way to accurately do this is by a process called "draping," whereby you drape selected shades of fabric under your chin and compare the color of the fabric to the colors in your face. You cannot determine your undertone by simply looking at your wrist because you are merely viewing the "shade" of your skin tone, as opposed to the undertone or base coloration.
In the draping process, you discover your skin's undertone by an indirect method. The aim is to enhance the undertone of your skin by using a complementary base color from the selected fabric.
Here's how to do this: With a group of three or four friends, assemble the following large swaths of fabric:

Four shades of green:

a) a blue-based emerald green (clear and vivid)
b) a blue-based sen green (soft and dusty)
c) a yellow-based mossy green (rich and in- tense)
d) a yellow-based bright chartreuse (light and clear)

Four shades of red:

a) a blue-based scarlet (clear and vivid)
b) a blue-based dusty raspberry (soft and muted)
c) a yellow-based tomato (rich and intense)
d) a yellow-based bright poppy (light and clear)

Four shades of blue:

a) a blue-based royal (clear and vivid)
b) a blue-based cornflower (soft and dusty)
c) a yellow-based teal (rich and intense)
d) a yellow-based bright aqua (light and clear)

Four shades of pink:

a) a blue-based fuchsia (vivid and clear)
b) a blue-based dusty rose (soft and muted)
c) a yellow-based salmon (rich and intense)
d) a yellow-based bright coral (light and bright)
Now drape each other in these colors, following the order in which they're listed. As you're watching this process, be sure to focus on the person's face, not the color. (Remember, you're seeking to discover which color brings the person out, not sim- ply the color you like best.)
In the right shade, you'll watch the person's skin tone become smooth and clear; shadows will seem to miraculously disappear!
In the wrong shades, the color will reflect onto the person's face; you'll notice the color, not the person.
Have your friends vote on what they're seeing. You'll nearly always find the consensus of others to be correct. (Your own opinion may be somewhat prejudiced by color preferences and the thought of having to change your wardrobe!)
If the consensus is that the colors of group a tested best on you consistently, you are a "Winter." If the consensus is toward group b, you are a "Summer." If the consensus is toward group c, you are an "Autumn"; and if the consensus is toward group d, then you are a "Spring."
NOTE: It's very important to perform this draping ceremony in natural light, so be sure you work near a large window with good sun exposure. Also, if your hair has been artificially colored, or has any chemical processing on it such as perms or waves, be sure to cover it with a white turban or bandanna. This will prevent your altered haircolor from throwing any shadows on your face, which could result in a misanalysis. This is crucial in determining your season, so don't forgo it in the name of vanity! Since the skin tone is a much subtler color than your hair, it's very easy to simply match the shades of fabric to the hair, rather than to the complexion. Also, be sure you remove all traces of makeup before you begin!

Questions & Answers

Q. Can I be a mixture of seasons!
A. No, you cannot. It's genetically impossible! Each "season" refers to a specific type of coloring, of which there are only four. For example, you cannot have a mixture of a golden and a blue undertone. Since the undertone functions as the base of your skin tone, it determines whether the shade of skin you have is either warm or cool. A color can only have one base, whether it's skin color, haircolor, fabric, a cosmetic shade, or even the paint on your wall!
The basic law of abstract color theory states that the base of a color determines its shade. For example, a burgundy red has a blue base. It is this blue base that actually causes the shade to be burgundy instead of some other shade of red, say tomato red or rust. Likewise, a mossy green is caused by a yellow base, while an emerald green is emerald because its base is blue! Your skin tone is exactly the same. An olive skin is always caused by a blue undertone. That's why it's olive and not a tawny beige (which is caused by a golden undertone). On the other hand, an ivory skin tone has a golden base, which is what makes it ivory instead of porcelain (which is caused by a blue undertone). There isn't a single individual-dead, alive. or yet to be born who possesses a mixture of undertones. It simply can not happen!
Q. What about "intensity"? Can I be a mixture of the "cools" (WinteSummer) or the "warms" (Autumn/Spring)!
A. No, you cannot. As with the undertone, you have one type of intensity to your coloring. High contrast coloring needs clear shades to enhance and bring it out effectively. Blended coloring needs a saturation of color to allow the subtlety of your coloring to show through gracefully. Mixing the clear colors with the dusty tones only negates your particular type of coloring.
Moreover, the palettes themselves simply don't mix effectively when you translate them into clothing and cosmetics. If you were to try to create color combinations of the cool Winter and Summer palettes, for example, you would never be able to effectively combine the jewel tones of Winter with the elegantly dusty shades of Summer. Since the palettes are of opposing intensities, the shades themselves are not at all complementary. Any resulting outfits of clothing would simply be a hodgepodge of mismatched colors!
Even more disasterous would be an attempt to mix the tones in cosmetics. For a makeup to be successful, you absolutely must keep all the colors on your face in one family of color, both in terms of the base and the intensity. Mixing them is akin to wearing a shocking pink blouse with a bright orange lipstick! While the result might not always be this glaring, opposite color families do not blend together!
Q. But I've had my colors done "professionally," and I was told I'm a mixture. Why would that have happened?
A. Basically, that means one of two things. Either you were analyzed incorrectly, which is, unfortunately, becoming quite common because of improper training and a lack of experience among color consultants, or it's simply a question of semantics.
Frequently, in an effort to delineate among the specific shades that you can actually wear effectively (be cause of the variations in individual skin tone, hair, and eye colors that exist within a season), color consult ants have attempted to make your palette as specific to you as possible. This sometimes manifests in your being labeled a mixture of seasons or having a "subseason." While this is technically incorrect, since the colors within the seasonal palettes do not actually blend with the other palettes, the result is usually a way of defining the range of shades within your season that appear most exciting on you.
From my experience, based on analyzing thousands of clients over a number of years, I simply find it too inaccurate and confusing to try to suggest to my clients that they "mix" the palettes. It's not helpful in a practical sense, for it doesn't actually add any colors that they can effectively work with in clothing, cosmetics, or haircolor. And, since it's technically incorrect, as I previously stated, I find that the clients who come to our salon with a "mixture" of colors nearly always have either a diluted appearance, in terms of focus, or they have a lot of mistakes hanging in their closets! Can my "contrast" change with age?
Q. What about as my hair turns gray? Does this change my season?
A. No, your season never changes with age, or anything else! As your hair begins to gray, Nature is not only changing your haircolor, but is also changing your skin tone and eyes at the same time. The balance among these three elements always remains the same. For example, if you're a mature Vivid Winter, like actress Bea Arthur, the balance among your haiskin/eyes is best described as high contrast. You have a vivid haircolor, a fair skin, and an intense eye color. True, your haircolor is not the same as when you were twenty years old, when it was probably a deep brunette, but you've maintained the high contrast coloring you were born with. As your hair began to gray, it didn't turn a dull or mousy shade of gray, but rather went a brilliant silver, didn't it? Your skin and eyes have actually gotten lighter at the same time, even though this difference is probably imperceptible to you. Do yone that your high contrast has not changed at all! You still have a vivid haircolor, a fair skin, and an in- ten eye color. Your balance has remained the same! You are still a Vivid Winter, and the colors that focus your specific coloring are still cool and clear!
Whatever your season, Nature created your haiskin/eyes as a unit. They always change together, and the balance among them never changes That's why your season never changes!
Q. Does my season have anything to do with style? For example, I read somewhere that Winters should stick to solids and geometrics, while Autumns are very good in tweeds and textures.
A. Not in the least! Having your colors done has absolutely nothing to do with anything other than determining what your skin tone is and which palette of colors to work with to enhance it. It tells you nothing more specific than the range of colors to use. Your specific clothing choices (including fabrics and textures, as well as shapes and lines), makeup shades, and haircolor range all come from developing your personal style through discovering your Image Identity.
For example, Autumns are frequently told to concentrate on use of textures in their wardrobe. Yet Ann-Margret is a Fiery Autumn, but as a Theatrical Romantic, I'd much rather see her in silks, satins, angora, and se quins than rough textures or tweeds any day of the year!
Having your colors done can be a wonderful and exciting addition to your life, and I highly recommend it when it's properly executed. Just be careful not to give it more importance than it's worth. Your coloring is only one part of you - it's worthy of being carefully looked at, but only within the contest of your total look.

Now I’m sure for those of us who are more visual the written descriptions of these colors can be ultra confusing! Unfortunately we can not share the seasonal palettes David has created. However, the palettes as well as a wealth of additional information on the sub seasons, additional celebrities as well as the three make up palettes for each season etc. can be accessed within the Four Season Freedom Facebook Group.
My personal tip is to get a good grasp on basic color theory by understanding what blue based vs yellow based colors look like. A really creative and explorative way to approach this is by getting some paints out and mixing the tones to see how blue (cool) with added yellow (warm) transforms into a warm blue. (Please ensure you use a true Yellow, a true Blue, a true Red, a true Black and a true White).
The goal of the system isn’t to just wear the colors David has in his seasonal palettes - it’s to use these as a jumping off point. So, that you can then take the concept of your coloring and have the ability to intuitively identify colors that harmonise with you rather than pull out a palette on your phone every time you go clothes or make up shopping!
Each season can be quickly understood by what it’s characteristics evoke:

Winter (Cool) is Jewel

Spring (Warm) is Vibrant

Summer (Cool) is Lush

Autumn (Warm) is Fiery

A quick disclaimer!! No season gets boring muted colors. Everyone gets beautifully saturated colors! You won’t see the sad, drab and dull tones often seen in other seasonal color systems here! For example Summer is Lush in tone not muted and Autumn is fiery in tone, again not muted In any sense if the word.

Let’s talk about the defining characteristics tied to certain seasons

I want to preface this part, by reminding us all that much like our Kibbe ID, we are born with the innate characteristics we have ; we are who we are meant to be! And so it’s never a case of being relegated to certain IDs or color seasons based on certain characteristics. But, instead we are embarking on the journey to discover what has always been there with the objective of achieving harmony with ourselves and in doing so bringing out our unique beauty.
Brown eyes Brown eyes are a feature of high contrast coloring and therefore will always be a high contrast season; Autumn or Winter.
Naturally Ginger / Red hair Ginger / Red hair is a warm color (a mix of a golden base with added red) and therefore will always be a warm season; Spring or Autumn.
An Olive undertone Olive is always caused by a blue undertone, therefore it will always be Winter.
Naturally Blonde hair Blonde hair can be any season except for Winter which requires a high level of contrast between the features; Skin/HaiEyes.
The Color Black Black is considered a cool tone that casts a shade on its surrounds, due to its depth of contrast is only given to Winters as with Winters it enhances the clarity of coloring whether-as with all other seasons it muddies their coloring.
The Color White White, on the other hand is universally given to all seasons as it is considered a neutral.

For the most part I love this game, like fully get so engrossed with it and I enjoy the time I spend on it,
and then there's this other part that eats away at me full of hatred towards it because,
I'm sick to death of being punished for playing well.
How can you have 39 kills to 9 deaths in a match and then the very next match 2 kills and 12 deaths before just rage quitting.
I'm almost convinced you're not even against legit people in some matches, instead they're like ultra insane AI bots to sent out to humble the shit out of you.
I'm sorry to say I would love to see this franchise crash and burn atm, the Devs deserve nothing but tomato's throwing at them.
And Activision can actually fuck off.
But I'll still play it, like the sad pathetic person I am, I'll still fucking play it.

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satisfy, sauce, save, saving, say, scale, scandal, scare, scatter, scenario, scene, schedule, scheme, scholar, scholarship, school, science, scientific, scientist, scope, score, scream, screen, script, sea, search, season, seat, second, secondary, secret, secretary, section, sector, secure, security, see, seed, seek, seem, segment, seize, select, selection, self, sell, Senate, senator, send, senior, sense, sensitive, sentence, separate, sequence, series, serious, seriously, servant, serve, service, session, set, setting, settle, settlement, seven, several, severe, sex, sexual, shade, shadow, shake, shall, shallow, shape, share, sharp, she, sheet, shelf, shell, shelter, shift, shine, ship, shirt, shock, shoe, shoot, shooting, shop, shopping, short, shortly, shot, should, shoulder, shout, show, shower, shrug, shut, shy, sibling, sick, side, sigh, sight, sign, signal, significant, significantly, silence, silent, silver, similar, similarly, simple, simply, sin, since, sing, singer, single, sink, sir, sister, sit, site, situation, six, size, ski, skill, skin, skirt, sky, slave, sleep, slice, slide, slight, slightly, slip, slow, slowly, small, smart, smell, smile, smoke, smooth, snap, snow, so, so-called, soccer, social, society, soft, software, soil, solar, soldier, sole, solid, solution, solve, some, somebody, somehow, someone, something, sometimes, somewhat, somewhere, son, song, soon, sophisticated, sorry, sort, soul, sound, soup, source, south, southern, Soviet, space, Spanish, speak, speaker, special, specialist, species, specific, specifically, specify, speech, speed, spend, spending, spin, spirit, spiritual, split, spoil, sponsor, sport, spot, spray, spread, spring, square, squeeze, stability, stable, staff, stage, stain, stair, stake, stand, standard, standing, star, stare, start, state, statement, station, statistical, status, stay, steady, steal, steel, steep, stem, step, stick, still, stimulate, stimulus, stir, stock, stomach, stone, stop, storage, store, storm, story, straight, strange, stranger, strategic, strategy, stream, street, strength, strengthen, stress, stretch, strike, string, strip, stroke, strong, strongly, structural, structure, struggle, student, studio, study, stuff, stupid, style, subject, submit, subsequent, substance, substantial, substitute, succeed, success, successful, successfully, such, sudden, suddenly, sue, suffer, sufficient, sugar, suggest, suggestion, suicide, suit, summer, summit, sun, super, supply, support, supporter, suppose, supposed, Supreme, sure, surely, surface, surgery, surprise, surprised, surprising, surprisingly, surround, survey, survival, survive, survivor, suspect, sustain, swear, sweep, sweet, swim, swing, switch, symbol, symptom, system, table, tactic, tail, take, tale, talent, talk, tall, tank, tap, tape, target, task, taste, tax, taxi, tea, teach, teacher, teaching, team, tear, technical, technique, technology, teen, teenager, telephone, telescope, television, tell, temperature, temporary, ten, tend, tendency, tennis, tension, tent, term, terms, terrible, territory, terror, terrorist, test, testimony, testing, text, than, thank, thanks, that, the, theater, their, them, theme, themselves, then, theory, therapy, there, therefore, these, they, thick, thin, thing, think, thinking, third, thirty, this, those, though, thought, thousand, threat, threaten, three, throat, through, throughout, throw, thus, ticket, tie, tight, time, tiny, tip, tire, tissue, title, to, tobacco, today, toe, together, toilet, token, tolerate, tomato, tomorrow, tone, tongue, tonight, too, tool, tooth, top, topic, toss, total, totally, touch, tough, tour, tourist, tournament, toward, towards, tower, town, toy, trace, track, trade, tradition, traditional, traffic, tragedy, trail, train, training, transfer, transform, transformation, transition, translate, translation, transmission, transmit, transport, transportation, travel, treat, treatment, treaty, tree, tremendous, trend, trial, tribe, 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weather, web, website, wedding, week, weekend, weekly, weigh, weight, welcome, welfare, well, west, western, wet, what, whatever, wheel, when, whenever, where, whereas, whether, which, while, whisper, white, who, whole, whom, whose, why, wide, widely, widespread, wife, wild, wildlife, will, willing, win, wind, window, wine, wing, winner, winter, wipe, wire, wisdom, wise, wish, with, withdraw, within, without, witness, woman, wonder, wonderful, wood, wooden, word, work, worker, working, workout, workplace, works, workshop, world, worried, worry, worth, would, wound, wrap, write, writer, writing, wrong, yard, yeah, year, yell, yellow, yes, yesterday, yet, yield, you, young, your, yours, yourself, youth, zone.