Baking classes in ottawa

Ottawa Biking Community

2011.08.19 16:12 Ottawa Biking Community

A place for any and all discussions, images/ videos, achievements, advocacy, bike rides, and news pertaining to Ottawa's biking community. Bike rides for all ages and abilities and for all cycling disciplines are welcome.

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2024.05.15 08:05 Quirky-swaggurl-420 I have no idea where to work and my appearance doesn’t help, any advice??

Kind of long, but any advice or input would be greatly appreciated :)
I (22F) have been working in fast food/ retail since I was 17 and I’m finally ready to take that leap to leave my current job and find one that will help advance my career and give me at least some financial stability. I also live in NorCal for context (not sure if I’d be willing to move quite yet.) I’ve been at my current retail job since 2021 and was honestly just going to stay there until I was completely finished with college but I just received my AA and the current management im under is so difficult to work with and extremely offensive I can barely take it not to mention I’ve been in management for about 2 years now and have gone from at least 20hr a week (part time) to less than 10hr a week, less than some associates and they’re all 3 hour shifts so I’m not even allowed to take a 10min break though im not even sure if that’s legal??
I am very fortunate to not have to pay rent as I live with my parents and I only have to worry about paying for my car, gas, phone, school, necessity’s etc. So no rent is a life saver in this economy. With that being said I don’t necessarily need the highest paying job quite yet (willing to work my way up or gain helpful experience) though that would be ideal for anyone. I just want to be able to find something that fits with my personality/ needs and also doesn’t care the way I look. I know sometimes you have to do what u gotta do but I cannot take working somewhere I’m miserable at and I understand that is a privilege within itself so I’m just trying to use the time I do have to really find what I’m passionate about and not be scared to try new things.
I still want to go back to school to get my bachelors degree since it’s always been a dream of mine, but since I pretty much pay for everything out of pocket besides some degree of financial aide, I don’t want to just aimlessly transfer somewhere with no clue on what to study which has been my issues for some time. I feel like my interest haven’t changed much and neither have my dreams to further my education so I’ve pretty much been saying the same things since probably before high school and I still have no clue what exactly the direction is I should go. I would love to gain some first hang experience to know if getting my B.A. is even worth it for the field I want to go into or what major would benefit me the best.
I have many interests and ideas as to what I could possibly do but I feel like as much as I say them out loud no one really relates so I always feel alone or like there’s no possible job for me that I’ll feel happy in. I mean I think majority of people would rather not work and focus their lives on their hobbies and passions but unfortunately that’s not in the cards for most people and though I sometimes live in that dreamland that doesn’t change the fact that I’m extremely dedicated, hard-working and really want to make a difference in whatever field I end up in. So I guess I’ll leave a list of the things I’m interested in, in case anybody has some advice or input on any occupations I’ve listed or have experience in anything I’ve listed.
I guess another thing to mention is that I was recently applying to a lot of jobs in childcare and pretty much every interview I went to turn me down on the spot because of my appearance. Of course I hear the stories of looking less professional due to your tattoos, piercings, etc., which I never understand. I don’t even have a single tattoo or piercing, not even my ears, but I have bright pink hair and that has been such a downside for the interviewing processes, even some retail jobs like Box Lunch for example doesn’t accept colored hair when they’re literally a pop culture store and share the same company as Hot Topic. I don’t want to have to change my appearance for a job. I know it’s just hair but I was never able to express myself the way I wanted to and the amount of money and maintenance that goes with having colored hair would not be worth it to me to color black just to get a job. It would feel like I’m altering myself and changing something that makes me feel good about myself is unfair and already puts a bad taste in my mouth about the company because they are willing to look over my qualifications and work ethic due to one minor detail in my appearance. One of these jobs I even had two on the phone interviews that went amazing and was going to my final in person interview and was literally meeting with a family for a behavioral technician job and the first thing they (the company) told me was I would need to change my hair to even be considered and I had to eventually politely end the interview because they still wanted to me to meet a kid despite straight up telling me they will not hire me if I didn’t immediately change my hair… and I’d be working with a family, not even in a ‘ public setting.’ I would just love to be able to work in a community that embraces people for their differences for the way they express themselves, and encourages self expression.
Anyways, here are some of my interests and I’d be eternally grateful to hear any feedback! Maybe you’ve worked in some of these environments and have advice or horror stories, if you have similar interests to me let me know what kind of job you have because I’m sure I don’t even know the formal titles to half of these jobs, or even have other ideas that match my interests. Thank you thank you thank you!

A lost 22 year old just trying to find her way

TLDR: I have so many interests and have no idea where to go with my next steps in my career and schooling, and would love some advice based off of my interest and experience. My unnaturally colored hair gets me nowhere. My experience and interests are listed below.
My schooling/ experience so far: * 5 years of theatre under my belt (onstage/backstage/management) * Just graduated with my AA in Social & Behavioral Sciences (Random but was recommended to do so based on all of the same interest I told my counselor some odd years ago) * Most of my college classes were focused in sociology, psychology, and child development, which has been super interesting so I am willing to branch out from my interest because I did find a lot of interest in the classes I’ve taken previously. * Have worked in retail for four years; Pretty well received by people * A nanny to 4 kids (ages 4-16) for about 3.5 years as well
My personality: (not sure if this will help with knowing if I would be a good fit for any of the jobs listed )
i’m extremely bubbly and can have my extroverted moments, but I can also be introverted at times and when work needs to get done, I will figure out the best way to do it and get to work. I work pretty well with a team and always have ideas flowing and bouncing around, but I can also excel working on my own/have no issues being independent with my work. I don’t have a huge preference on a fast versus slow paced work environment. I would like something flexible, but I have no issue with getting into a routine. I feel like I am truly pretty flexible when it comes to my work environment, I just really want a place that I can express myself and be surrounded by a community of people similar to me. I love to be innovative and creative.
My interests/ ideas: (sorry kinda random and jumps around)

always wanted to be a nanny or travel nanny; to work with one specific family and grow with them
Pre-k - 1st grade teacher; I find teaching younger kids really fulfilling, love crafts/ activities/planning, extremely patient
Art teacher (i love ceramics, but pretty much any type of art would be so cool to incorporate creativity with teaching)
Child advocate (possibly on movie and tv sets)
Teacher on movie and television sets
Directing or any sort of behind the scenes job for movies and television (I love to write and create concepts, costuming, sets, music, casting)
Set designer for movies, television, or theater
Costume designer for movies, television, or theater
Possibly work with an acting company backstage (I don’t even know if that’s a job but possibly a permanent backstage role somewhere)
Open my own curated thrift shop or a shop in general that is really creative or theme oriented
Have a small bakery business or just a business in general, I love the idea of being able to run a company or brand that’s inclusive and creative
I do love to bake and Decorate desserts
Creative Director; photographer, videographer; I just love the thought of creating things and bringing concepts together, planning, etc.
Magazine company?
Wedding planning/party and event planning; again, I just like bringing things together I feel like I have an eye for aesthetics
Something with marketing or managing

As you can see, most of my interest have to do with childcare and the arts, which are some of the lowest paying jobs/difficult fields to get into, but it’s what I most passionate about and what I can actually see myself being happy doing for a long time. i’m also not opposed to working in one certain field for a while and then branching out to something different or related further down the line, I just want to know what step I should take next so I’m not just floating around doing nothing and being/fill, I just want to know what step I should take next so I’m not just floating around doing nothing and being/feeling useless.
Thank you so much to anyone who responds with advice and kind words :)

submitted by Quirky-swaggurl-420 to careeradvice [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 07:54 Quirky-swaggurl-420 I have no idea where to work and my appearance doesn’t help, any advice???

A lost 22 year old just trying to find her way

always wanted to be a nanny or travel nanny; to work with one specific family and grow with them
Pre-k - 1st grade teacher; I find teaching younger kids really fulfilling, love crafts/ activities/planning, extremely patient
Art teacher (i love ceramics, but pretty much any type of art would be so cool to incorporate creativity with teaching)
Child advocate (possibly on movie and tv sets)
Teacher on movie and television sets
Directing or any sort of behind the scenes job for movies and television (I love to write and create concepts, costuming, sets, music, casting)
Set designer for movies, television, or theater
Costume designer for movies, television, or theater
Possibly work with an acting company backstage (I don’t even know if that’s a job but possibly a permanent backstage role somewhere)
Open my own curated thrift shop or a shop in general that is really creative or theme oriented
Have a small bakery business or just a business in general, I love the idea of being able to run a company or brand that’s inclusive and creative
I do love to bake and Decorate desserts
Creative Director; photographer, videographer; I just love the thought of creating things and bringing concepts together, planning, etc.
Magazine company?
Wedding planning/party and event planning; again, I just like bringing things together I feel like I have an eye for aesthetics
Something with marketing or managing

submitted by Quirky-swaggurl-420 to careerguidance [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 03:05 Direct_Ad3287 Did ya'll see the Gideon's employee's go off with this demand list ?

Mr. Steve Lewis
Mr. Patrick McKinney
Mr. Bryan Freiermuth
c/o Gideons 1898 LLC et al
1600 East Buena Vista Drive

A

Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830
VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL
May 10th, 2024
Final Demand
Gentlemen,
There is an odor most foul in the Bakehouse. It is the stench of the fish rotting from the head.
To our proprietor Steve, and our managers Bryan and Patrick:
There is dissension within the ranks, and if the following items are not resolved as we outline
below, we’re prepared to drag this house of cards to the ground.
Before we proceed with our grievances, numerous and shocking, and the demands to resolve
them; allow us a moment for introductions.
We, are the Ghosts of Gideons, the poor and unfortunate souls upon whom you have built your
cookie empire. We are the many, the unseen, and as of the disastrous meeting May 6th, 2024, the
decidedly unheard.
Many of us have approached management and ownership multiple times with helpful hints,
strong suggestions, and desperate pleas to rectify a myriad of health, safety and operational
concerns- with nearly all of them being dismissed or ignored entirely.
Now, we, the collective, have banded together to deliver this tome- not as a warning of what is to
come, but as a final demand to resolve the issues outlined herein. You may dismiss us
individually, but you cannot ignore all of us together.
Make no mistake, if the following solutions are not implemented with immediate effect, we will
do everything in our power to topple this cookie castle permanently.
We should start by informing you, that, yes- we are but lowly workers for Gideons, however, we
are supported by families who hold prominent positions in the community as lawyers, labor
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representatives, publicists, and county government workers. Families who love us, and want to
see us remain safely and fairly employed.
Through our vast, and well connected network the following steps have already been
implemented:
1) A lawsuit for your numerous unfair and unsafe labor practices and work conditions has
been drafted.
2) A press release, along with a copy of this letter, have been sent to local and national
media.
3) We have created social channels to connect directly with customers and inform them of
the reprehensible work conditions we are enduring.
4) We have filed health and safety reports with local government bodies detailing the
extensive issues we are faced with at the Springs location.
5) We have informed Disney Springs leadership of our position relating to the above, and
below in this letter.
In all cases, these competent bodies are awaiting our word. If the demands listed herein are not
satisfied immediately, we will, in tandem with the above, begin a campaign to inform the world
of your numerous transgressions, filing lawsuits and media coverages exposing you and the
Company for the shill that it is, and we will not stop until the Bakehouse bakes no more.
We should also mention that should any attempt be made to retaliate against us, including
termination, reducing our hours, benefits, or taking other pervasive actions against any Gideons
employee, will promptly result in our bringing legal class-action.
The time has come for you, our leaders, to actually lead. This means spending money where
money must be spent, and making the following operational changes, so that we can all continue
to exist in harmony, and not feel like we’re trapped on an 1800’s plantation- working for the big
house.
1) Communication- How dare you drag the entire workforce to a 9AM meeting,
demanding our presence, and then talk directly at us with the most mundane drivel we’ve
ever heard. Everything dictated today could have been very well sent as an email-
especially when you did not allow for any discussion between us, the workers who
actually make your business run, and the disconnected upper-management who are hell
bent on implementing misguided and inefficient policies. Do not call us in for a
mandatory meeting again when the points can be covered in an email, unless you intend
to open the floor for actual conversation and listen to what we have to say.
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To that end, since our voices were silenced this morning, we demand the following:
● Cold Brew- We will not adopt the ‘bartender’ shaking style of preparing the cold
brew drinks. When we have 10+ beverages queuing to be made, shaking each
drink 10 times will severely impact our ability to be efficient. This is but one
example of Steve’s desire to have ‘form over function’. We understand there may
be a ‘look’ you’re going for, but when it compromises our ability to efficiently
perform our function, we refuse. We demand to be allowed to resume our ‘stir
stick’ preparation immediately.
● Point System/ Order Accuracy- Under no circumstance should Management take
the side of the Guest over the word of the employee. Too often we see guests
complain that an order was incorrect, and Management issues a point to an
employee. This must stop immediately. We demand you implement a ‘please
check your screen for order accuracy’ procedure where the guest confirms their
order before they pay, and remove the ‘point’ system. If the guest confirms the
order, it reduces the possibility for an inaccurate order.
● Inconsistent/ Inaccurate menu boards and Social Postings- The inside Menu
Board has been outdated for nearly two years. It must be updated immediately to
remove items we no longer sell (IE Coke Products) and ingredient offerings (IE
Banana WALNUT). By correctly labeling the items, it reduces the stress on us in
having to confirm that certain items have nuts, or not being yelled at by guests
who are disgruntled that we no longer sell Coke products. Further, there are
multiple social media inaccuracies when describing new products (IE peanut
butter buttercream, VS the actual peanut butter cream cheese). These inaccurate
product descriptions hurt the brand, and cause confusion with the guests when
they come to order these products. Also the new umbrellas are not UV resistant;
therefore any mention of them ‘protecting you from the sun’ is false, and may
result in legal action from guests. We demand you only post accurate descriptions
to the website/ social media to avoid further guest/ employee confrontation.
● HR- Given the fact that Cynthia engaged in using racial slurs during the May 6th
meeting, referring to guests as gypsies and hoodlums, we demand her firing and
removal immediately. Multiple members of staff were deeply offended by the
hurtful stereotypes that Cynthia perpetuated, and we no longer have any trust in
her ability to lead this organization, especially from a HR perspective, when she
herself seems to harbor unfair and demeaning racial views.
● Management- We cannot express with limited words the level of dissatisfaction
we maintain for Drew. The staff, in our entirety, have never dealt with such
incompetent, slothful, and wasteful behavior. Drew consistently stays on his
phone, refusing to help the team accomplish any of their tasks, and barely exudes
a modicum of effort through his rare action of helping build cake boxes or taking
out trash before disembarking on a break (which none us other managers/leads are
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cookie king, bringing in circa $40,000 per day, affording you a life of luxury, and not
fairly compensate the employees that are making Gideons everything that it is. The
cookies are good, but make no mistake, as was stated during the May 6th meeting, the
customers come for us. I can’t imagine what they’ll say when they learn about the
slave-like conditions in which we work, especially with Auntie Anne’s earning $18 per
hour + tips.
3) Hours- Part time is up to 30 hours per week, full time is 30 hours or more. We must have
a guaranteed number of hours per week, pending our availability. For example, if a
full-time employee has open availability, they must be scheduled for 40 hours. If a
part-time person has open availability, they must be scheduled for up to 30 hours per
week. This is to ensure we have a stable and uniform weekly income, guaranteed by our
base pay and consistent hours.
4) On Call- All shifts that are ‘on- call’ must be guaranteed a full 8 hour shift, regardless if
the employee is called into work or not. We clear our day and make ourselves available to
cover the Company, and we demand to be compensated a full 8 hours ($16 per hour) for
the flexibility to suit the Company’s needs.
5) Pay Protection- In the event that the store is closed for any reason, employees currently
scheduled to be working during the closure must receive all payment for the shifts they
were scheduled for. If the AC goes out again, and we’re down for several days, those of
us scheduled must receive full compensation for shifts as scheduled.
3) Health & Safety- While it seems that Gideon’s is based primarily on the ‘cool factor’ in how
our processes look from a customer perspective, we are still a fully functioning kitchen and retail
location with a haphazard health and safety process, at best.
To ensure a properly safe workplace and customer experience, we demand the following changes
immediately:
1) Shorts/ Heat Safety Prevention- We’ve been told time and time again that the ‘Disney
Contract’ we cannot wear shorts. After having multiple conversations with Disney
Springs leadership and the Unite Here 362 representatives, we have come to understand
that a change in uniform can be initiated by amendment. No longer can the ‘look’ of
something overpower the safety of us. In terms of being outside in the sunlight and heat,
we demand that the contract be amended immediately to account for a uniform change,
thus allowing us to wear shorts within the next five days. It is dangerous for us to be
outside in the heat and sunlight during high-heat (more than 70 degrees fahrenheit) days,
wearing all black and long pants. We are unwilling to compromise our personal health
and safety to appease your ‘style guide’ insisting on long pants, but we’re happy to
maintain a look via style guide for shorts. In addition, we have seen multiple large/
battery operated fans in use around Disney property, keeping other Cast cool during these
heat waves. We demand that large fans are procured and placed in strategic outside
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locations within the next 5 days, so that we may have respite during high temp days. The
cooling towels and neck fans you have provided are ineffective.
2) Egress- We bakers are trapped. There is no second means of fire egress from the kitchen,
and should a fire or other disaster occur with the ovens, we would be trapped and unable
to escape. We demand you add in additional egress from the bakery, into the outside
alley. We understand this will require planning and stairs, however, planning must be
commenced immediately. We will not work in an unsafe environment, and with no place
to escape in the event of an emergency, we will be burned alive.
3) Handicap accessibility- Our retail location does not comply with ADA mobility
standards. The counters must be moved to allow an employee who utilizes a wheelchair
or other mobility device the proper space to move behind the counters and throughout the
kitchen. While yes, a wheelchair will ‘fit’, they will be unable to properly move. We are
discriminating against hiring ADA employees due to the way the store is currently
overcrowded and built. We demand proper spacing be added within the next 90 days.
4) Safety Training & Procedures- As of right now Operations have not developed any safety
or training procedures relating to fire, bomb threat, active shooter, lighting/ rain, accident
or other hazard. We are provided with no training in the event of any of these
emergencies, and we are all woefully unprepared with a common knowledge of how to
address emergency situations. We demand that a safety plan be developed and provided
to each of us in writing, and that we receive sufficient training of the new procedures
within 14 days.
5) Sanitation- Our baking sheets never get cleaned. We demand that you hire an outside
vendor to pick up used equipment nightly at close, and deliver a clean set at the same
time, so that we may rotate clean equipment daily. It is too large a task for us to wash in
house, and this needs to be automated for us. Our current sanitation procedure is
inadequate to ensure proper health and safety standards.
6) Bathroom breaks- Many of us suffer from various biological disabilities that force
frequent trips to the restroom. We simply cannot ‘hold it’ until we’re on break. IF we
need to go to the restroom, we must be immediately accommodated to do so without
repercussions. While this is not common, it does happen, and must be allowed.
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Demand Timeline:
May 11th- Cold Brew BartendeShaking preparation is disbanded, stir stick preparation is
reimplemented.
May 11th- Cynthia is terminated immediately for using racial slurs during a company meeting.
May 11th- Drew is demoted as manager immediately for failure to act as a leader, and help his
team, undergoing an immense retraining before he is reinstated.
May 12th- All employees earn a base rate of $16 + tip share.
May 12th- An automatic/ mandatory 7.5% gratuity is placed on all guest orders.
May 12th- All ‘on call’ shifts will be guaranteed a full 8 hours ($16 p/h), regardless of working
or not.
May 12th- Lead/ Trainer pay to increase to at least $19 per hour when training, and $18 per hour
at all other times + tip share.
May 11th- Planning for additional egress to begin. Must be fully installed and operational no
later than June 20th, 2024.
May 17th- A $1,200 bonus is paid to all employees who worked during the last three pay
periods. This bonus covers the lower wages suffered from the ‘no tip’ asking policy.
May 13th- Schedules to be created, guaranteeing all ‘part-time’ employees up to 30 hours per
week based on employee availability, and ‘full-time’ employees at least 40 hours per week,
based on employee availability.
May 14th- Commercial grade fans outside submitted for approval to Disney, installed upon
approval.
May 15th- Shorts implemented for all workers, all shifts, when the outside temperature is more
than 70 degrees fahrenheit.
May 14th- Sanitation company must be contracted to pick up used baking sheets nightly, and a
second set of baking sheets to be procured to ensure sufficient sanitation of products in direct
contact with food.
May 24th- All health & safety procedures will be drafted and provided to all employees in
writing, with in-person training to occur with all employees. New hires shall receive the new
procedures and same in person training as a part of their onboarding.
August 4th- Handicap/ADA compliance. The store and kitchen must be rearranged/ decluttered
to allow for the hiring of mobility device users, including wheelchairs, to comply with ADA
layout requirements.
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While the above demands only scratch a portion of the hazardous operational procedures, we are
confident that should they all be addressed and the solutions we have demanded are implemented
within the allotted timelines, we can avoid a disastrous fallout and continue to work together to
ensure Gideons remains a successful operation.
We understand that this will most likely come as a shock, not less because ownership and
operations seem to be blissfully unaware of the vast deterioration, but moreover, the inane
procedural overhauls implemented in today’s meeting simply reek of disconnection to the reality
of the process, and will only serve to further delay and complicate the already struggling
operation.
It is time to see beyond all of the narcissistic ‘it looks cool, so we’re going to do it my way’
absurdity, and recognize that the above demands come from your soldiers on the frontlines. A
tough pill to swallow, but it is medicine critical to survival, nevertheless. We further recommend
that all upper management leadership work at least one eight hour, front of house shift per six
months, to ensure they remain fully connected and relevant.
We must issue a final word of warning: should this letter be ignored, or any of the above
demands are not implemented, or any retaliatory action be taken, it will be met with the most
severe consequences.
We know that you are amassing a fortune, and all we Ghosts ask for is a fair wage, a safe and
comfortable working environment, and to be treated with dignity and respect.
We’d hate for the adoring public to learn of any other reality. This is your one, final, opportunity
to make it right.
We look forward to your prompt email reply confirming your plan of action to comply with our
demands herein.
In Solidarity,
The Ghosts of Gideons.

submitted by Direct_Ad3287 to disneysprings [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 21:27 Awkward_Chemistry_80 Clubs/classes to join to make friends???

Hi bitches!
My friend 23F is moving to NYC by herself and is really nervous about being able to make friends. She can be a little socially anxious so i thought maybe a club/class to join might help get her out there! Do you know any specific clubs/classes she could join to make some friends? If you can’t name any specific ones, could you tell me a place/page where i could find them? Not from the area.
Some info about her:
-Likes reading/crocheting/puzzling (she calls herself an old lady lol)
-Wants to get better at cooking, she’s definitely a foodie
-Loves kpop, music in general, dancing
-Creative, loves to draw and do other artsy things
-Baking/cake decorating
Open to any suggestions even if they don’t seem to fit her hobbies!

submitted by Awkward_Chemistry_80 to NYCbitcheswithtaste [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 20:50 Simplyserenityy I am done

My downfall according to my father began in the last two years. Our relationship had always been rocky but it was fine. In front of my family friends we always look so close and he is so proud of me...but I know he hates me for not being more, particularly these last two years. I am gonna be honest...my downfall really began in high school, but I think he doesn't want to say it. I put on the hijab in junior years of high school and he was okay with it, but said it was not something he sees as necessary. But because all the uncles and aunties praised me like oh she is so pretty but she covered up and started using me as an example in the the group.. like it was so embarrassing. ESPECIALLY the uncles like one of them turned to his wife and started lecturing her on the spot like you don't wear it and she is so much better...and then they all praised my dad (like this was his accomplishment) and therefore he was pound of it. Like yeah my daughter covers up....
But hijab was just the first thing...I started pushing way from all of it...the journey of med school and all. I never cared for it. When college started, I started as a pre-med student but I KNEW I wasn't living up to the potential of a future doctor. I didn't do any extracurriculars or volunteering (part of it was COVID during the first two years) but the last two...I should have done more. But I was enjoying living the muslimah life to much. I went class yes, but nothing else just straight home. I don't know I felt like I was living in a daze...I went to class, then home, study, sleep, pray, class, then home, study sleep, pray.... And my parents loved that. I know It now. They liked this version of me...this girl was the perfect girl...she does well in school but also looks and acts like a proper traditional girl, never talking to guys, never social media, like I didn't even know about reddit until last year and made my first post actually 4 months ago something about being lost after postundergraduate...funny thinking 4 months back I thought everything was fixed.
I gave into my impulses...I wanted to be married and live that period drama hallmark simple life *we have it hard, but through faith and God we will make it through* life. I also think I highly romanticized the idea of marriage and the saving yourself for him maybe to other people too far. In the last two years, I went into some weird vortex or something. I just wanted to be the girl who lived for him I think 🤦🏻‍♀️....its silly and cringe and I know that now. But it made sense then okay, like in order for you to get into really good research labs, you have to work with others but I just couldn't...I wanted to never speak to another guy unless absolutely necessary life or death situation. Which again I understand is silly....🙄 no need to rub it in like everyone else I know. So I kind of did something really bad... I knew what I was doing even though later I feigned innocence. I switched my major from a science major to art...[and if my brother sees this.....it is still a subject you could get into med school with just no longer that "it" popular major for premed for the last TimE AND I WILL DELETE THIS LATER SO STOP AND LET ME GET MY ANGER OUT AS I HAVE NO OTHER WAY OF GETTING IT LITERALLY STUCK IN THIS ROOM ALL THE TIME]
Anyway, in the last 7 months the number of fights here was record breaking. I finally stated I didn't want to do anymore schooling. At one point I told my mom how I don't really care for a career and wanted to be married to the love of my life and I accidentally showed her or I think I told her after watching a movie (I cannot remember there has been too much going on) my Pinterest board of things I want to do as a wife...stuff like baking for him, and making his lunch...and really embarrassing things. ANYWHO.. she told my dad and well ensue the yelling and crying. I started feeling bad...thus enter studying for the entrance exam and racking in volunteer hours. I even stated working part time for "customer experience" and to see "how life is difficult and giving up on a career is stupid." TO my girls who work retail wow just seeing how horrible it is. LIKE LITERALLY HARASSMENT IN RETAIL IS REAL My first week this customer started following me around the store and asked me to out and I said no and then he came back and would not leave literally had to to get security on him. then came entering the job field and then to tie it all together the topic of the hijab. My dad hates that I wear it because it stopped a lot of reputable jobs and uuhgjgghjhhj OMG MY GOD I CANNOT I THOUGHt WRITING THIS WOULD BE CATHARTIC AND IT WAS BUT NOW I AM DONE BECAUSE I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO MAKE SENSE OF THIS AND THERE IS TO MANY DETAILS AND NOTHING REALLY MAKES SENSE and I am tired of the yelling. I tried to explain that to be the girl who gets into top schools and all needs to be someone who has an extensive resume (not just the amount.. quality over quantity) but THEY DON'T EVEN LET ME OUT OF THE HOUSE LIKKEEEE MAKE IT MAKE SENSE. YOU CANNOT HAVE THE GIRL WHO IS BOTH AT HOME TRADITIONAL DOES NOTHING AND THE GIRL [WHO ALSO IS GOOD I think if there is any muslims girlie out here trying and living according to the Quran and Hadith and following your dreams to become a doctor to help people, then you do you I am not judging you at all..this is just my thing with my parents] who GOES OUT TO VOLUNTEER AND DOES INTERNSHIPS LIKE HELOOOOOOOO THIS IS NOT BACK HOME WHERE ALL YOU DO IS STUDY AND GET IN. YOU NEED TO BE AN ALL ROUNDER APPLICANT WHO DOES A LOT OF OTHER THINGS NOT JUST STAY HOME
But it's okay..since he SO BADLY WANTS ME TO BE THAT GIRL....I WILL. I HAVE NO ISSUE BEING THE GIRL WHO GETS THINGS DONE. WHEN I AM DONE, WE WILL SEE WHO WINS THIS FIGHT. THIS COMPLETE 180 THAT I AM ABOUT TO TAKE IS JUST GOING TO MINDBLOWING. YOU WANT NO HIJAB ME..FINEEEEEEEEEEEEE AND TO MY MOM WHO IS ALL "SINCE YOU WANTED TO BE MARRIED SO BADLY...WHY DIDNT YOU JUST BRING SOMEONE HOME" I WILLLLLLLL. I DENIED THEM IN THE PAST because I WAS SHY AND I WAS TRYING TO BE RESPECTABLE DAUGHTER FOR YOU........BUT LETS SEE HOW MANY YOU CAN TURN AWAY NOW

submitted by Simplyserenityy to MuslimCorner [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 19:24 Individual-Manner-67 STA rewrite attempt

A couple of years ago I tried writing my own version of Stones Abbigale. I never got past the first couple scenes, but I'm considering returning to it. I wanted to basically rewrite and change up a lot of things, mainly focusing on Abbi and Davis and changing some elements. Let me know what you think!

1
It's almost four in the morning and Seth is threatening suicide again. Good. Fuck him. I hope he does it. I don't text him that because I read about this girl who told her boyfriend to kill himself. The irony was that when he actually did it she got charged with second degree murder. My life is fucked as it is I don't need to make it worse. I’m shivering under my comforter because we’re halfway through November. I think about the turkey that won't get made this year and the family I won't see. I think that's swell. Seth is still texting.
Its like u dont even care after everything that happened and after everything we did together i saved ur life and i stayed with u when u cried and i hugged u and i did everything for u but that wasn't enough was it? i try so hard and all u ever are is a bitch to me that's not fair u want me to die and u hate me and u dont even care and im sick of it abbi why is is so hard for u to care about me?
I don't respond. I don't like how I feel about this. This should be easy. He won't actually do it. He won't. He’s too self involved to kill himself. I put my phone face down on my bed. The sheets shake around it as he sends message after message. I was sleeping on a ticking bomb so I got off of it. My feet stick to the floor, I struggle to step. I might as well have been standing barefoot on ice. I trudge to my window so I can see my street at night.
Winter is really coming. You can't hear as many birds as you used to. They've all gone. They've all flown away. I can see three streetlights from where I’m standing. If you look from right to left, you can see the concrete fracture into the sand. I open my window and brace for the chill. I stick my head outside. The ocean is not far away. I hear it hitting the shore over and over. Waves of water splashing incessantly, almost beating out my text notifications.
The street lights flicker. I think of last summer. When Seth and I got really high after the news broke that my Mom was cheating on my Dad. I was making out with that bong. Emptying bowl after bowl, clanking the glass on the road to empty it out. Just thinking about it makes me feel the street pole against my back again. I was laughing and crying. Seth leaned in and hugged me. “I’m a sure thing,” he said. “I love you and I always will.”I caught my reflection in his sunglasses. I looked awful. I shiver at the memory.
My phone is still buzzing. I try to catch my breath. I shut my window and start to walk back to my bed. A room always looks different in the dark. Maybe you think you know where you are, but there is always something that can jump out at you on the floor. Like a ghostly paper bag or a vengeful shoe. Objects that seem to move on their own with the sole drive of tripping you.
I crawl back into bed. There's the phantom of Dad’s snoring . I know he's not sleeping in his room, he fell asleep on the couch after finishing his seventh fifth. Sometimes my brain fills in the gaps so I can hear it everywhere. Funnily, I haven't actually heard him snore since Mom left. That's the one thing I ever heard them fight about. Before she turned out to be a whore, I guess.
BZZT.BZZT.BZZT.
I can't bring myself to read any of his messages. They're coming so fast all the paragraphs are lost to motion blur. Seth’s arms wrap around me and I think about the beating of his heart and the warmth of his lips against my skin. I open up the texts, ready to respond.
I love you
I text this over and over until I fall asleep.
Davis was the only senior on the bus. Somehow, everyone else had a car or a ride. It’s all right, though. James would probably give him one if he had a car, but he skated to school every morning. That's why he barely ever rode the bus with him. The bus thumped along the under paved roads. Davis forgot his earbuds at home, so the only music that accompanied him was his racing thoughts. Two sophomore girls popped their heads over.
“Ohmigod, Davis!” One of them shrieked.
“As I live and breathe,” he smiled. “Nice,” she said. “I’m so excited to see your finished painting.”
Davis took the lower level art class for a requirement. Like most things, he's not taking it very seriously. For their pop art unit, he's painting a portrait of the art teacher with a warthog face. It's one of his funny disruptions. He knows Mrs. Stanley is going to have a real field day with it, but it doesn't matter. Artistic liberties, he’d profess.
“She's such a bitch, isn't she?” The sophomore girl turns to her compatriot, who only nods in response.
“She's just jealous,” Davis says. “It must be depressing to teach art and see the youth soar above her.”
“For sure,” the girl doesn't get it. Class clown is a semi-heavy burden. Davis doesn't really feel like talking to these girls, but his position demands it. Comedy informs everything about him. To the giant thrift store jeans, to the loud Hawaiian shirt. He and James are the ultimate combination, at least he likes to think so. Quiet brooding begs for bright distraction.
The girl is still trying to talk to him and Davis is saying his preprogrammed lines. The bus stops in front of James’s street. Surprisingly, James is standing there.
“Like I’m this close to just filling my hydroflask with vodka, yaknow?” says the chick. Maybe she's just trying to get a rise out of him.
“Better be prepared to give me more than a sip,” Davis is watching James grumble towards the bus.
The sun is beating down on the forming ice puddles. James stomps through them with small shattering steps.
James turns up the bus aisle and plops in the seat next to Davis. Davis’s smile is genuine now, but he fights it from getting too wide.
“Crash your vehicle?” Davis asks.
“Something like it,” there's something off with him. Davis doesn't want to push it.
“Well damn, hope insurance covers it,” Davis wants James to break and laugh. Is it just another mood or did something actually happen this time?
“It won't, I got bad credit,” James grins and it's like heaven. “What's the move for you today?”
“Surviving art and physics for me,” says Davis. “Those bastards love to keep me down.”
“Who doesn't,” James eyes the girls who have since returned to whatever they were doing before. It's the judgement stare, as Davis calls it. James likes to observe his peers like a zoo-goer. Breaking them down to taxonomic types. Davis likes to think that James doesn't do this to him, but he knows he probably does.
“It sucks you decided to be bad at school and take baby art,” James is still dissecting the sophomore girls down to their tropes. “We could have done Art II together.”
“I wouldn't want to get between you and Alex. I know how you love it when people piss in jars next to you.”
“That's disgusting,” James breaks his glare at the girls.
“It's performance art, it's beautiful,” Davis gets up out of his seat to yell. “Everyone witness the wonderful work of Alex Madov! Disengage yourself from the shackles of capitalism by shouting with me: Poopy, pee pee, poop!”
Davis gets a few chuckles from the other kids on the bus.
“Sit down, fatso,” mumbles the bus driver.
“I will not be silenced! I’m a messenger of the good word, sir!”
"More of this shit and I’m skipping your stop!” “Fine, but I will make Alex remember on the day of judgement,” Davis sits back down. James is full belly laughing.
“You're so retarded,” James wheezes. Davis can't even come back with a response. He's high off of it.
The bus pulls into the school lot with a short stop. The mobs get up and begin to race out. Davis follows James down the line.
“You know Abbi?” James asks. Davis feels a little pit form in his stomach, but he doesn't change his expression.
“Vaguely, what about her?”
“She's in my art class,” James begins. “And I think … well you know, I’m going to talk to her.” He walks down the steps and out the door.
“Doesn't she have a boyfr-” before Davis can descend the driver's arm blocks him.
“I’ve had enough of your shit, kid,” he says. “If you keep being obnoxious, I’m gonna find a way to make you pay for it.”
James looks back, but he can't stay. Davis knows that he's gotta get to class. James does a little wave goodbye and Davis salutes him. “Are you even listening to me?” the bus driver seethes.
“Yes, sir. Divine retribution, got it.” Davis ducks underneath his arm and exits the bus. James has already disappeared into the crowd.
I pass the bong to Ashley. She starts another bowl. She’s the transport and I provide the material. The little things that keep our friendship afloat. I look at the clock in her car.
“It's 8:45,” I pick a piece of bagel out of my teeth.
“So that's it, we officially missed first period,” Ashley tops it off.
“They won't mark us, you know. It's a study.”
“Yeah, but when's the last time we signed in? I heard they're changing the policy again. Do you still have the lighter?”
I toss it to her. I don't get it. It's always her idea to pick me up so we can smoke before school, why now is she suddenly caring about attendance?
“We're pretty girls, we can get out of it. I’m next,” I tap on the clock. “Are you sure it's not fast?”
She shakes her head as she takes a snap. We're parked in the pond area a block or two from the school. It's our designated smoking spot. I like it, even at the end of fall it's pretty. I’m so engrossed that I don't realize her tip out the bowl and put it back in the cup holder.
“I don't know if it's wise to keep up the activity, we should probably get going soon,” she starts up her car again.
“Okay,” I say.
She reverses and swings out of the lot. We lean into the silence and it's super weird.
“Seth texted me last night,” I wait for her reaction.
“Oh,” she grimaces. “What did you say?”
“That I loved him.” Silence again. Ashley's trying to put together something well-meaning while understanding that I’ll probably ignore whatever she has to say.
“Abbi, I’m not trying to tell you how to run your life, but …” Her expression is now quizzical. She's said what she is about to say a number of different ways all ready. She thinks and thinks and decides to say nothing. Good call, I would have screamed at her. Not because what she thinks about my situation isn't true, I’m just in a ‘screaming at people mood’ because of it.
“I’m going to dye my hair again,” she changes the subject to avoid conflict. Classic Ash.
“Oh yeah? What color this time?”
“I don't know,” she checks her reflection in the rear view. “The red has faded out, maybe blue or pink this time.”
“You should go with a softer pink,” I say. “Since you're a soft spring.”
“Yeah, maybe.” We enter the school lot. “Listen, do you want to get together when I do it? Maybe you can dye your hair too.”
“I don't know, I might be busy,” I say. “Seth might want to do something,” I pause for her to protest. “Okay,” she says. She parks and we get out.
I barrel into art class. I don't care if I reek, out of all the teachers I can tell Mrs. Stanley smokes the most. It would be hypocritical of her to care. It looks like I’m the first one. Weird. I check my phone. It's 8:45. Well, fuck. Looks like Ashley needs to fix her clock. Mrs. Stanley is at her desk. She looks at me knowingly.
“Eager to create today, Abbi?”
I just nod and sit at my desk. I’m really feeling it. I open up my precalc notebook and just start sketching. Birds, eyes, trees, whatever. Kids start coming in. Their chatter echoes around me, I try to focus on what I’m doing. Someone bumps into my table. I look up. It's this lanky blonde kid, I think his name is James. He presses his hands underneath the desk as he leans up to talk to me.
“Eww!” He shouts. Some kids turn and laugh. I don't. I just stare at him. James goes red and sits next to the kid who pissed in a jar. Once an adequate amount of students are in the room, Mrs. Stanley starts her lesson slideshow. On the screen is a dirty urinal.
“How many of you are familiar with this work by Marcel DuChamp?” she asks. At this point, Jason, the designated meathead jock, enters the room.
“Sorry I’m late, Mrs. S,” he booms. He looks at the slide. “We building bathrooms today?” Mrs. Stanley glares at him.
“Wouldn't you like that? Considering you spend all of your time in there.”
“Whatever,” Jason brushes his mullet behind his ears.
“No, not whatever. Would you like me to move you into the sophomore class with Davis? Believe it or not he's getting much better marks than you are getting in here.”
Jason rolls his eyes and takes his place in the chair next to me.
“Up to a little extra curricular activities before art, Abbi?” he motions a joint in his fingers. I scoff and go on my phone. There's another text from Seth.
sorry about last night
and
im reading it all right now that was fucked im sorry
I start to respond, but before I can Mrs. Stanley outstretches her hand.
“Give me your phone, Miss Hagerty. I’m sick of giving you warnings.” I don't have the energy to fight, I just give it to her. “You can pick it up at the end of the day.”
My jaw actually drops. Jason must have really set her off, she's not usually such a cunt to me.
“Anyways, found art. What is it? Well, found art is the use of everyday objects to convey an altered meaning. It can be something you find on the street or something that once held value to you. For example, My Bed by Tracey Elim.” She pulls up a picture of a messy bed that looks suspiciously like my own. “So for your final unit of the quarter, you will be making your own found art. I really want you to take this project a little more seriously than most of you have been taking this class. I’m giving you the privilege of picking your own partners, but I’d like to remind you to be thoughtful with your choice. This will be worth more for your grade.”
I look around. I don't have any friends here. I toy around with the idea of asking Jason for convenience and he looks like he's about to pull that move. Behind me there's that James guy. He’s sheepishly looking at me. He seems kind of nice. Okay. I don't feel like getting up so I just turn around in my chair.
“Hey James, wanna be partners?” He balks a bit and then smiles at me.
“Yeah, totally,” He's beaming and it's somewhat endearing. Alex and I switch seats and now I’m next to him.
“I’m gonna be real with you …” I begin. He stops and shifts a little. “I have no idea what we're supposed to be doing for this.” He regards me oddly. Like he's trying to piece me together. It doesn't bother me.
“She said we have to bring in an object that's special to us and present it artistically basically,” he rubs his chin. Damn, I must be baked to hell. I didn't hear her saying that at all. “So got any stuffed animals we can cut up and make Lovecraftian monstrosities out of?”
“I got a hamster cage, hold the hamster,” I say. It comes out kind of weird and I probably sound stupid, but he doesn't seem to care. “Let's make a fucking zoo.”
“Perfect!” He’s kind of cute actually. In a way. Something about this feels fun. I realize the bell will ring soon.
“So um,” I rip out a page of my precalc notebook, still fresh with my drawings. I scrawl out my number and push it to him. “Call me so we can figure out the project some more.” I pack up all my stuff and start to head out. I can feel him watching me and it's not that bad.
“I sure will,” he says. Everything feels really groovy. There's a lightness now. I’m halfway out the door when I remember my phone. I can't believe that I just forgot about Seth. I think about begging for my phone, but I feel too above that. Still, something shakes the good feeling as the bell rings.

submitted by Individual-Manner-67 to Onision [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 18:29 MindlessPerception22 what are they dreaming of?

What do you think everyone else's dreams are? And how would it play out? Some I can figure out/guess easier than others. But it's a bit shallow...
Heartslaybul
Riddle - the freedom and love he missed out on in childhood with his mom.
Trey - probably something with baking, either the family business branching out or him getting every baking tool and ingredient at his disposal.
Cater - based on his vignettes, more respect and care from his family? The ability to be more open and have long lasting friends?
Ace - he seems pretty content already honestly, maybe better grades.
Deuce - honor student.
Savanaclaw
Leona - being recognized and praised for his talents and accomplishments, being on top for once.
Jack - also seems pretty content, maybe to have Leona be the idol he believed he was.
Ruggie - less poor, whether that's being filthy rich or middle class (this extends to his friends and family back home).
Octavinelle
Azul - Jack of all trades, master of all. Wants to be part of and the best at anything he wants.
Jade - too secretive to tell, best guess is whatever Azul and Floyd wants.
Floyd - whatever his heart desires at that very moment, as long as it's not boring.
Scarabia
Kalim - having fun and being friends with Jamil.
Jamil - freedom from servitude and from Kalim, probably traveling.
Pomefiore
Vil - to be 1st place, to be a hero, to be in the top charts, to beat Neige.
Epel - tall and buff manly man.
Rook - I saw the spoilers, can't see anything else for him.
Ignihyde
Idia - we know...
Ortho - have Idia go out more and make friends/be social/be less dependant on his tablet and him.
Diasomnia
Malleus and sebek we know, and Lilia's we're in the middle of. Silver's is most likely the same as Malleus and Sebek's.
Ramshackle
Grim - best mage, infinite tuna, and on a more hidden note to stay with Yuu at NRC. He's a simple guy.
Yuu - [insert oc here], my oc's dream is simply just to stay with everyone and be able to go home whenever they want.

submitted by MindlessPerception22 to TwistedWonderland [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 17:22 Sheldaconda How can I help my wife and mother form a stronger bond?

I asked chatGPT this question: My wife cried this mother's day because she was jealous that my mother takes care of me while she has to take care of her mother. My mother spoils me when I come over to her house, randomly buys me groceries when she has a generous urge, and pays my phone and gym bill while I'm in college. She would do anything for me. She is a saint and I'm very lucky to have her as a mother. My wife's mother depends on my wife to function day to day. My wife takes care of her other siblings, plans all the family get togethers, looks out for her half brother in high school, while taking care of her own 6 year old child. My wife once had to pretend to be her mother because her half brother got into some trouble at high school and her mother was too afraid to talk with the counselor. I told my wife that my mother is her mother now. And that my family loves and accepts her as one of their own. How can I ask my mother to treat my wife like she's her daughter? What are some good mothedaughter activates that they can do together? Not that my mother doesn't treat my wife with kindness, she does, I just want them to form a stronger bond and for my wife to not think of my mother as an in-law and start thinking of her as a mother.
chatGPT response: It sounds like you're in a complex situation, but it's wonderful that you want to foster a stronger bond between your wife and your mother. Here are some steps you can take:

Open Communication: Have an honest conversation with both your wife and your mother separately. Explain your desire for them to have a closer relationship and express how important it is to you.
Express Gratitude: Make sure both your wife and your mother understand how much you appreciate their roles in your life. Let them know that you value their relationship and want to see it grow.
Facilitate Quality Time: Encourage them to spend time together doing activities they both enjoy. This could be anything from cooking together, going for walks, attending a class or workshop, or simply having coffee and chatting.
Include Both Families: Plan family gatherings or outings where both your wife's and your mother's families can come together. This will help them bond in a more relaxed setting and see each other as part of the same extended family.
Show Support: Be there to support both your wife and your mother as they navigate their relationship. Offer reassurance and encouragement as they work towards building a stronger bond.

As for mother-daughter activities, here are some ideas:

Shopping: Whether it's for clothes, home decor, or groceries, shopping together can be a fun bonding experience.
Cooking or Baking: Spend a day in the kitchen cooking up some family recipes or trying out new ones together.
Crafting or DIY Projects: Get creative with some crafting projects or tackle some DIY home improvement tasks together.
Spa Day: Treat them to a spa day or create a DIY spa experience at home with facials, manicures, and relaxation techniques.
Outdoor Adventures: Go for a hike, have a picnic in the park, or explore a nearby botanical garden together.

Remember to be patient and understanding as they navigate their relationship. Building strong bonds takes time and effort from all parties involved.
I'm going to take the AI's advice but, I was hoping that someone, who has gone through something similar, could share what helped their spouse form a stronger bond with their in-laws. Some background information: my wife is in her 20s, my mother is in her 50s and married to my father, and we live in Kentucky.

submitted by Sheldaconda to Advice [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 16:42 frenchiemama95 Severe Performance Anxiety

Does anyone else have terrible performance anxiety?? Recently I started wondering if my experience with my BPD mom contributed to this, as she critiqued EVERYTHING I did.
I’m 29 now but I still have theee worst anxiety when it comes to anything relating to other people’s opinions of me, like presenting, my career, and even just making food for people. I absolutely love baking but I can’t bring myself to making it for other people. My anxiety level around work is just off the charts and I worry it’ll never get better. I feel imposter syndrome with anything I do.
I have quit a few jobs just a couple days or weeks after starting, I’ve withdrawn my applications from places I’ve applied to when I’ve been asked to come in for an interview, I started doing freelance graphic design (I thought I might do better being my own boss) and had to stop because I didn’t think I was good enough and was terrified of rejection relating to my designs, I remember literally asking my teacher in high school if I could present my presentation facing the chalkboard instead of my class. Like it’s reeeaally bad…
Has anyone else experienced this and come out on the other side?

submitted by frenchiemama95 to raisedbyborderlines [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 16:30 Corruptfun As If It Were Kismet Prologue & Chapters 1-5

As If It Were Kismet: Prologue
Matt tore through the brush, blind in the dark. He didn’t care where he was going. He only knew he needed to be elsewhere. Far from here.
Behind him a creature howled that shocked his mind. It’s form was cruel and dangerous, though female. Nothing like the young woman she had once been. Nothing but a girl, a small and slight female.
It’s guttural growls and howls only grew closer as Matt tried to pick between seeing where he was going and getting away. The few times he looked he caught sight of the creature behind him. Hopping through the air with a speed that told him he was being toyed with. As if he were a mouse being played with by a cat.
But the reflex in him to run kept him going. His adrenaline going as hard as it could. The tightness and burning in his core tensing and locking up as his legs felt like there were being burned from within while taking on more of a heaviness.
His lungs were starting to betray him as he tried to gulp big breaths of air but only rapid and shallow breaths were all that he could manage. His brain was starting to burn….and then he was falling.
Falling down the side of a hill he saw the creature dart in a spring towards him, imperceivably fast almost. Catching him in mid air it seemed.
Managing to wrap its body around him and cushion his impact against the ground as they rolled. His mind barely took in what was happening during the roll. Only starting to understand what was happening once they were still.
The creature's triple D-cup breasts were unmistakably pressed hard against his back as he laid facing up at the night sky.
For a few seconds the world stilled and the needle light pain hitting the center of his brain took over for the cooking heat his brain had felt. His whole body felt heavy and reluctant to move.
Even if he could have really moved, a dull ache came over his limbs making them feel stilled and trapped as if by immeasurable amounts of sand that had engulfed him.
Slowly the arms holding him started to move. Moving so the creature's hands could start exploring him. Causing Matt to unstoppably let out a pathetic moan that made him go cold inside as hands lifted up his shirt and started to touch his exposed stomach and then his chest.
He would have whimpered so pathetically had he not still been in the depths of terror.
As its hands felt and groped his pecs he tried to situp as if to get away. For his efforts, his reward was a hand around his throat and a collection snarls and growls against his ear. A beastly, guttural voice spat words at him while somehow holding a feminine tone.
“Don’t move….I don’t know if I can calm down…”
Her words were not helped by her moans in his ear and the subsequent kissing of his ear. The flesh of his ear going between her lips as she moaned and seemed to pant. Releasing it and licking the side of his face with a moist warmth. He could feel its spittle, viscous and coating his flesh where the tongue touched. He could smell something in his saliva. Something that subtly entranced him.
Matt went stock still with fear and the confusion of mixed arousal. He barely perceived her right hand traveling lower on his body. A surprised moan and shudder echoed in the night from Matt’s lips as she took ahold of him. Her hand above his pants but still….stimulating him.
A light squeezing and almost probing of her digits kept him aroused and confused within her grasp. Resigning himself to the strange fate, Matt looked up at the stars as his mind tried not to shatter under the strange maelstrom of events and sensation that had started mere minutes ago.
His mind was only more confused as a slight figure, feminine in build, how it seemed to thunk the ground audibly as she landed on her feet out nowhere. Her knees barely bending under the pressure of the landing. Yet dirt was kicked up anyways and some of it onto Matt. Feeling it pepper his shirt and pants as it fell.
The figure, lit only faintly by moonlight, roared some dark tone Matt could only perceive as a demon as her eyes went bright with a crimson light. A light in the darkness that should not have been. “Let him go you bitch.” Was its words following the roar. Spittle escaping its mouth with faint droplets hit Matt's face.
The creature holding him by his throat and crotch seemed to tighten the grasp of both hands as it roared back. “HE IS MINE!”
The figure paused with a moment's hesitation. He was also her quarry. She had felt his fear without him knowing. His confused arousal. His fear. His terror.
And now he laid at the center of a struggle between two monsters. Unsure of who he wanted to win.
As If It Was Kismet Ch. 1
Matthew Berkshire hadn’t seen his mom in two years. Not that he had seen her much over the last six years.
A messy divorce between messy people and mom’s chaotic want for a life in Alaska had been one of the most…upsetting times in life. Setting him up for so much of what had defined his life thus far but then that had really started two years before he ever turned.
His ear buds were basic and simple. A part of cheap five pack, common for his life as he was known to lose little things. Small things. They had a mix of metal and hard rock playing in them. Some classics, some alternative. Whatever made him feel something, anything. Even if it was hate. Anger. Rage. It was better than feeling numb. Not belonging.
The escalator down to his lone bag to go with his lone carry on showed his mom waiting for him. His had a type, that’s for damn sure. Not that it helped him in the genetics department as he was stuck at 5’9” to go along with his mother’s five foot even as his dad stood six foot. Forever leaving him to feel small, to pale, under his dad’s shadow. Did he ever stand a chance?
The guy next to her with the unkempt former seventies porn stache was “Dave.” He’d met him twice when his mother came and visited him in Florida. To his credit the guy didn’t look annoyed. Kind of concerned kind of which made Matthew want to break his frozen look but he was well practiced. Having removed any note of sadness from his face through much…tribulation.
His mother’s look on her face betrayed a hint of worry as the bruises on his face lightly showed up close. Saying his name was his like a distant echo that belonged to someone else.
Dave cut in and pulled out his right headphone. “What the hell bud, they knock you hard enough to hurt hearing? Your mom’s asking how you are doing.”
Matthew pulled out the other bud and grunted an empty “sorry.”
“You still have bruises after two week? What did they do to you?” His mom’s voice was full of worry. Something he hadn’t heard in….too long. Too long to make him feel anything. To ever make him believe there was any sincerity to her words. To not think her voice and mannerisms were an act. An act by someone who…wasn’t really there.
“It’s only fair. I took a nose. Fractured a couple orbital bones. Left one with having to get his jaw wired shut. And one will never walk right again for what I did to his knee cap.” Matthew said it all with a bored and disinterested tone. Perhaps well rehearsed.
“My man, handing out ass kickings, not bothering to take names.” Dave was quick to be the typical man’s man about it. Matthew wasn’t quite done yet. Lifting up his shirt to expose the right side near his kidney. Revealing a nasty scar from a six inch blade. “Luckily they gave me this first so they could rule it all in self-defense. The fuck didn’t get it in more than inch before I ruined his knee cap and then I took the nose of one of the fucks holding me.” Now he chose to smile keeping the well practiced dead look in his eyes.
No retorts. No questions. Just horrified looks on their faces. As he liked. As he preferred. They could hate him. They could be disgusted by him. But by God they would fear him.
“Well the doc did a good job sewing you up.” Dave commented uncomfortably. “Dissolving sutures. Ain’t they grand.” He smiled again and let it abruptly fall off his face and started walking to the carousel for the baggage claim.
Waiting and making small talk with Dave as his mother stood in silence. He was not the little boy she abandoned. The little boy she left with an angry man. While never hitting him. Left him in constant fear till he turned twelve and just didn’t care anymore. Something snapped. Broke. And he didn’t care if he died. Didn’t care if he stole. Didn’t even care if he killed. He just knew not to get caught. Something left over from his grandfather’s wisdom which came to make more and more sense with each passing year of life since that thing inside him broke.
Finally his bag came around and Dave went to try first to grab it but Dave practically leapt ahead of him. “Is that your grandfather’s rucksack bag?” his mother asked in a perplexed voice.
“Figured it’s been around since Viet Nam. So it’d serve me better than any of the worthless stuff they called luggage.” Dave commented after Matthew’s words. “Well hell yeah I still got mine from Desert Storm. You know the first one.” Dave laughed and Matthew eyed him oddly. Be it in the south or whether it was Alaska, country boys are country boys he guessed.
The car ride to the two people’s house, as Matthew thought of them. Was uneventful and full of vistas he imagined metropolitan types wetting themselves over. At most they meant isolation to him. Furtherness from the world as there were no mountains in Florida. And what mountains he had last seen in another state had been when he was eight. Another life, to Matthew it felt like. A life alien to him.
As If It Was Kismet Ch 2
Dave and his mom’s place was some two story type tucked into a tree line far up an elevated point. It was by no means the highest point in the mountain but it certainly felt up there.
Rocks were where the driveway should have been Matthew thought. Grabbing his backpack and rucksack from Dave’s jeep was no hard thing for him. Matthew was in formidable shape for someone his age, maybe even five years older. He had gotten a mix of fairly big shoulders and arms along with the chest to go for it when compared to most kids his age. A side effect of working out at least twice a day. First thing in the morning, some time in the evening, and the school’s gym when had had a good semester in school before he had to leave Florida.
Dave tried to come up and help him but Matthew walked past him towards the house. His mom was not sure what to make of his demeanor. Matthew was not the sweet kind boy he had once been. But she had been gone from his life essentially for a long time.
Ushering him into the house she cracked some joke he did not hear. He was too busy looking about and seeing a mix of old outdated decorating mixed with the strange and odd flair of his mother. Color contrasting against drab and dated. Like brightly painting over an old home that was falling apart he thought.
“Your room is this way Mattie.” His mom brightly intoned.
Without expressing any interest he followed his mother. Still faced and nonplussed. Just going along with the current. Pushed and pulled with its roll like a piece of driftwood.
The room was simple. A single small bed. A set of rubber weights with a curl bar and barbells. “Your dad said you were into weight lifting so we got you a bunch of stuff. Dave says it looks like his department’s gym almost. The woman’s smile felt very alien to him.
“Thank you. I appreciate it. I’ve got most of my stuff from home.” Matthew starting unpacking his rucksack and pulled out cables of repetitive and mixed colors. A single plastic barbell handle. The ruck sack could be filled with water bottles for added weight during pushups he figured. Remembering a Michael Keaton movie he watched with his dad post-Batman movies where he played a convicted killer using plastic bags filled with water for weights.
Matthew caught movement outside his lone fairly large window that could let him step out onto the roof of the house given its layout.
He saw a number of people running together through what he guessed was the backyard of the property, not that it had any fences to mark boundaries
They wore clothes that looked similar yet different from each other at the same time.”Oh those are the Johnston’s. Really nice bunch of people. Been on the mountain for a long time Dave tells me.”
Matthew looked at the group of people running and noticed the lack of resemblance. “They are related?” Matthew quizzically asked. Seeing a black and possibly a hispanic person amongst the bland looking white people.
“Oh well they are all adopted but for one or two of them…besides the parents of course. The family has a long tradition of taking in orphans they say. Real nice of them to do that don’t you think.”
Matthew looked at his mother and the hosier accent made no sense to him as he arched his left eye brow. Her and his dad were both from Florida. Born and raised. Sure her parents were from New York city but…
Matthew shook his lightly without turning to look at his mother as his vision was grabbed by one of the runners in particular. A girl of moderate height. Soft brunette. A plain beauty he figured with a slim build….and lack of remarkable breasts and rear to make any note of but….girls in general were his type at his age.
She was pretty enough. He couldn’t deny that but he found himself transfixed by her visage.
But the way she turned and looked at him, especially at that distance felt very disconcerting to him. Even if she was smiling like…she was a taste of a bright shiny day. Somehow.
Matthew’s mom noticed the exchange and smiled to herself with closed lips. “Oh that’s Vicky. She’s your age I think. Very sweet girl, who does the charity functions. You know bake sales, blood drives, car washes and the like. I think you should get to know her. Might be good for you.”
A truck horn sounded a couple of beeps in rather succession. “Oh that must be Mack, he said he might come by later this evening but he seems early.”
Matthew’s mother turned and left his room. Leaving Matthew to exchange a few looks with the alluring Vicky as she turned her head away from him to talk to the others in her group and look back at him.
Still Matthew’s left eyebrow was arched. In a way that reminded him of Spock from Star Trek that he and his grandpa used to watch on some streaming service or another.
As he heard ambient chatter elsewhere outside the house he figured to check it out as the alluring sight of Vicky would be around he figured. It was dull to stare at artwork. He was a boy who preferred jet skis and the like. Something he could ride and enjoy immensely. Even if at times it got him stabbed.
As If It Was Kismet Ch 3
Matthew sauntered out of the house and down the rockway that stood in for a driveway.
A few new people had come over from what he could first surmise of the situation. As he got closer it was obvious they were indigenous people. A couple of grown men…and a girl?
She was mousey. Maybe five foot. Hiding behind glasses and a big camo jacket that was far too big for her. It looked made for a grown man and the backwards trucker hat on her head kept her long black a beautiful mess of sorts.
She was cute in a way. A little androgynous but she had a cute energy to her. She reminded him of the more tomboyish Puerto Rican girls he had gotten into back in Florida. Given the deer corpses in the back of the truck….probably more dangerous to play with given the men in her family.
Small chatter passed between the adults when the girl noticed but turned away, trying to hide the tiny hint of a smile.
“Oh Mattie, this is Mack. He works with Dave at the sheriff’s department and John, he’s with fish and wildlife.” Matthew nodded at his mom’s words with some blankness as he looked at the deer the in the back of the pickup truck.
“Gale tells us you hunted with your dad some in Florida and Georgia.” Mack offered with a light hearted laugh camouflaged by his big simple and cheery but husky way he spoke.
Looking in the back of the truck he spoke. “We used lever action thirty-thirties and Mosin Nagants in seven-six-two-fifty-four-rimmed.” Mack and John whistled in an exaggerated fashion. Leaving Matthew to wonder if they were mocking him.
Mack spoke. “Well we just used thirty-odd-six in a custom gussied Garand.” That caught Matthew’s attention. “You have a Garand…” Matthew finally demonstrated interest in anything. “My dad has an SVT-40 and a Hakim 8mm but he always wanted a Garand but was too cheap to buy one.”
Gale, his mother, chimed in loudly. “Oh his Dad loved his guns but was such an odd duck about how he bought or why he bought them. Never made sense to me how he wasn’t a collector but he didn’t get the latest and greatest.” Gale laughed uncomfortably. At least it seemed that way to Matthew.
Matthew pointed to the girl with an underhanded pointing hand. “And who is this? A cute little mute mouse or does she have a name?” Dave and the other men laughed.
Mack again spoke. “Well you people call her Rebecca, she’s my adopted daughter.” Matthew was taken aback by what he heard. “You people?”
Rebecca kindly spoke with a soft but almost melodic voice as she struggled to maintain eye contact. “White people or rather not members of our tribe. It’s just easier to appease the colonizer kind of thing. Borrowed from when the Jesuit missionaries chased us up here.”
Mack stepped in. “It’s just easier to have white people names than have them try to say our tribal names. And we don’t want them shortening or Anglicising our names kind of thing.” Rebecca stepped back into the conversation cutting off her adopted father. “It’s an insult to our history basically.”
Matthew cocked his head sideways raising his eyebrows shortly before letting them drop. “Well as soon as I’m eighteen I’m out of here and back to Florida so I’m a sort of involuntary colonizer of sorts. So I won’t be taking any of your land from you. The Seminoles on the other hand are still shit out of luck.”
Rebecca’s smile caused Matthew to reflexively smile. Mack made the moment more awkward. “See Becca, I told you someone off the reservation would like you some. You just have to be creative.” Mack laughed in a chiding manner…Matthew presumed. He sensed that he was the butt of some kind of cultural joke. Like marrying a white guy was some sort of insult or mark of shame. That kind of thing.
Rebecca turning away from him was not something he had been expecting. Her then getting in the truck in a huff left the group in a silence for a moment.
Dave spoke to break the awkward silence. “Well just bring the truck to work on Monday and leave it for me to grab up.” Mack acknowledged Dave and they started to get off as Rebecca looked at Matthew for another instance. Matthew couldn’t look away for some reason as the two seemed to lock eyes for an instance.
Till Vicky and family seemed to come jogging down the road. While Matthew’s eyes diverted from Rebecca’s. Hers did not till she realized he was looking elsewhere. And her vision found Vicky and what had been a hint of smile on her face turned glum and disappointed.
Matthew did not look away from the vision of Vicky but instead of a starry eyed fool looking longingly. It was a baffled look. Well baffled for him, with his eyes drawn narrow and night with a focus.
There was something about her…he couldn’t quite put a name too. The way she appeared to him. One second brunette. The next second blonde or blonde like. As if the color appeared in her air and disappeared in fractions of seconds. Much the same way her body almost seemed to…shift…very subtly…smoothly. A nicer bum. Larger breasts. And then back to a simple and plain form. Feminine no doubt. Attractive. But not so…remarkable.
As If It Was Kismet Ch 4
The next two days passed without incident. Nothing of any real substance or challenge to note.
Matthew got settled somewhat and started working out almost immediately. Exploring around the woods but Dave told him not to go far. Especially without a hunting rifle. Dave had left a simple semi-auto Winchester out for him. His bear gun as Dave referred to it with its four round magazine. But Matt figured till he got some practice with the rifle to leave it alone. He made a hiking stick like his grandpa taught him and treated it over a low fire. He would take some electrical tape for the end his hand would grip around. Plenty enough to ward off anything smaller than a bear he figured.
The ride to school was a pain in the neck but simple enough. Dave would let him use a clunker pickup truck he had laying around. It wasn’t pretty but it would get him to and from. Even if it was from the eighties and still backfired on occasion. But for now Dave and his mom took him on their way to the sheriff’s department.
It wasn’t much of a school. It wanted to be modern but its fifties original construction was very obvious. It serviced the pipeline families and familys’ of fisherman who worked the seasons in between their time at the pipeline.
Matt was to report to the principal for some reason Dave and his mom wouldn’t share. Which annoyed him but he figured it was to read him the law of land. Small towns with their big views of the outside world and like.
Dressed in jeans, a grey sweatshirt under a light jacket with steel toed boots set him more apart then he expected. His buzzed head didn’t help matters. Already he was feeling like a stranger in a strange land but he was quite strange after all. And he liked it that way. Normal people were so pathetically disappointing to him.
A secretary or assistant or some such led him to the principal’s office. Where it reeked of real wood that was old and fabric and upholstery that needed to be updated for the last twenty years, Matt figured.
“This is Matthew Berkshire, Principal Andrews.” The man was turned with his back to the door and he was quick to wave her off as he turned her around.
He was an older man. Fat and large. Tall with a body built like he had once been fit and a demeanour of annoyed and irate already as he fixed Matt with a scowl and look of disgust. Another worthless government whore. Matt thought to himself. His father and his grandfather had bestowed unto him a natural disrespect for government workers and the figures that wore unjustified authority as a shield but pretended the weight of the state was not at their back ready to crush all who resisted. Little figures of valor pretending to be mighty and alone but acting with the tyranny of the state and all the backing.
“Mr. Berkshire, please sit down.” His tone wasn’t unusually hostile, just gruff. As if he had better things to do.
Matt complied and took a seat in the chair while maintaining a friendly facade. Not everyone was an enemy. And not everyone needed to be an enemy. Even if anybody could be any enemy. There was no reason to make enemies you didn’t have to. Another of his grandfather’s bastardised wisdoms.
“Well I looked over you file and you have quite the history Mr. Berkshire.” Matt resisted qiuping back a joke. Instead he waited for Principal Andrews to continue as he remained nonplussed and looking as if he felt no need to respond. A simple head tilt with dead eyes looking back at the principle as if he was not even there would suffice.
Matt’s reaction or lack of a reaction rather made Principal Andrews only narrow his eyes with examination. He was not used to a kid not responding to him. Especially with his gruff and hard act going on.
“Well by all accounts you moved here after some problems at your last school. A fight broke out and you did some real harm to your fellow students it appears.” Of course, he would take the side of the perpetrators. School administrators always did. Especially when they weren’t white. Just a fact of the times. Cowardice and pathetic mediocrity was the way they leaned, like good government workers sucking the dick of Big Daddy government. Worthless whores.
Matt chose to reply. “Oh you mean the criminals that stabbed me. Got arrested at the hospital and then pled to felonies. Yeah Florida, with the American counties are good like that.” Principal Andrews went real still. No shame. No fear. No penitence. He didn’t like that.
“Well be it as it may Mr. Berkshire we don’t tolerate that kind of behaviour here…” Matt cut him off responding with a deadpan tone. “You mean self-defense meant to save one’s own life while the cowardly and pathetic school workers look on with zero interest but to keep their money rolling in and will allow known gang members with records of violent acts and crimes that should have them expelled many times over, where in certain Democrat counties such cowardice and idiocy empowered a couple school shooters?”
Principal Andrews looked at the Matt with a note of disgust. “Look here Mr. Berkshire, your beliefs matter not one bit here. This isn’t Florida. We don’t like our way of life being disrupted by outside agitators who have problems with authority.”
Matt did his best not to roll his eyes and let the older fat man drone own as he dead-stared him. Lifeless and without emotion.
The man came to a finish and Matt spoke up without having listened to him or paid him any attention. “Great now that’s taken care of. Can I please get to class and finish my sentence of two years at your wonderful school?”
Principal Andrews huffed and snorted before calling in Vicky. Vicky stood in the corner after entering with a quiet and seamless presence. Matt felt disturbed and tried not betray his feelings as the young Vicky was perceived and not perceived to be moving.
Principal Andrews made the introductions and Matt nodded back. She was to be his chaperone for the day. They had the same classes and she was to show him the ropes so to speak. The ins and outs of the school. The locations of their classes.
He recognized her. It was hard not to. The way her appearance seemed to shift fluidly almost. The petite and skinny brunette ever so lightly had a big bust and blonde hair with curves added when she seemed to shift before his eyes. Like watching a film but each frame had a different person.
Matt didn’t say anything about it. Even if he did he would only be acknowledging his crazed state, if he had one. If.
Unlike an obedient puppy dog he got up in a slow and awkward fashion and followed behind her as his oddly disproportionate frame allowed. Causing her a note of concern for some reason. As if she was seeing something she shouldn’t have been….Or he was just weird. And Matt could admit to himself he was just weird. Part of his charm, he would jest about it at times. Not that he had many people to jest to now.
As If It Were Kismet Ch. 5
Following Vicky into the hall off to their first class was simple. She exchanged small talk and he slightly smiled as if to obviously suggest he was just being polite.
Inside his head, Matt was trying to figure out if he was having a psychotic break. The way Vicky looked kept changing and he looked at the other people around him and they stayed the same.
He was searching his mind as they were walking. And thus he wasn’t paying attention to where he was looking and so fell to his face forward over his feet seemingly out of nowhere.
A series of laughs erupted as it sunk in that he was obviously tripped. Like in prison this was a challenge to his superiority. If he let this pass he would be mocked and sneered at by this same group of boys. He wouldn’t walk to them like he was going to do nothing like a little bitch.
In a rage he turned and punched the stomach of the first face he saw. Some typical blonde haired wannabe jock. He knew from experience not to aim for the ribs. Instead he needed to aim for where he thought the belly button was.
Yells and screams blindly echoed around him as his after the punch he followed up his elbow of the opposite arm slamming into the face of the jock. Harder than a fist, the elbow struck the jock’s jaw and seemingly dropped him against a locker. Just in time to catch an errant and soft punch to the nose that sure enough hurt but did little to slow him down as his dad had taught him to fight through the pain. Blood and scars happened. They were a natural consequence of life to a man.
Taking the punch and falling further into his red state Matt headbutted the punch thrower before another guy arm bared his throat from behind. Which he managed to get his grip on the arm over a letterman jacked and jerk the unprepared boy to the side with him still latched on.
A few feet away from the lockers Matt knew his only chance was to jump and push off the lockers and knock the boy to the ground and so he did. He heard a thunk of the boy’s skull bouncing off the ground and he turned to pull out of the grapple.
The beatings he had taken from his father, the grapples, being choked unconscious. Had prepared him for fighting little bitches who didn’t know what a fight was. It wasn’t gay porn with rabbit punch fists flying.
Blood was running down his face and the pain started to hit him as the threats had been eliminated. Only then did he remember to breathe. Taking breathes as Vicky came up to him with tissues and took a hold of his nose.
“Owww owww owww what the fuck my nose could be broken.” He said to Vicky as she pulled his head up and back.
“It’s ok Carl. It’s done.” Matt tried to look to see who Vicky was talking to. It was a boy taller than his 5’9” by more than a small margin. The boy eyed him bored and annoyed before speaking. “What happened here?” An unoriginal line but one Matt couldn’t be a smart aleck about. “Well you see there was an outbreak of tripping and we all tripped over my dick. It happens.” Matt was about to laugh when Vicky seemed to pull up while still gripping his nose causing Matt no small amount of pain which he audibly evidenced.
Vicky spoke in a tone he wasn’t expecting. As if she was accustomed to issuing orders. “Keep Iris away from the hall till we sanitize the site. We have blood from at least three people contaminating the site. And have Jake bring me a spare jacket and shirt for this moron.”
Carl seemed to acknowledge her orders and seemed to blink away. Maybe the punch hit harder than he expected. He had no time to wonder as Vick took her hand away from his and pushed him against the lockers. With ease he had not been expecting from her form and stature.
Before he could respond Vicky licked his blood covered chin and then his lips and spoke to him. “Focus on me you little blood bag.” Her tone had an annoyed yet feminine sneer.
“Look into my eyes. Look at me. You belong to me. You are just another food source in a collection of food sources.” Her eyes were a beautiful hazel Matt thought. Almost green. Pretty like jewels in some old treasure collections. The eyes he could get lost in before kissing her. Finally Vicky was just a slight and petite brunette and he thought she was beautiful.
She would make a hell of a girlfriend. Some cute thing he could see laying on the beach in Florida on their sides laughing and smiling before trading light kisses while hands wandered innocently. Before his mind could drift further he felt her lips on his. It took him a second to mentally grasp the kiss but his arms were around her back as her hands were at his sides. His eyes reflexively closed as he saw hers close.
It was ineffable to Matt. Beyond words, what was happening. The kiss, the moments beforehand. The way his brain tickled with electricity and gentle warmth. He had never had a kiss like this and he had traded more than a few kisses with at least a few girls.
The kiss was like a warm bath with his consciousness slipping beneath the surface. Their lips only parted to try new angles and approaches as Matt struggled to take in breath. It was a moment he could have stayed trapped in for….he didn’t know. But a curt throat clearing by another girl pulled them out of the moment.
The girl was taller than Vicky. Blonde. With slight curves. Vicky addressed her bewildered and gobsmacked, and perhaps a bit embarrassed. “Tina?”

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2024.05.14 15:26 Kirinkirby [H] Events/Pogo Shinies [W] Paypal

[svirtual]
Gen5
Strongest Return Mewtwo; Pokemon: Mewtwo; Tag: KOR; Nature: Adamant; Trade History: Self-Redeemed; OT: 최강의귀환; ID: 03042; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
Chilseok Jirachi; Pokemon: Jirachi; Tag: KOR; Nature: Rash; Trade History: Self-Redeemed; OT: 칠석; ID: 08013; Proof: WC; Notes: Price: Offer
Kanto Starter Eggs; Pokemon: Bulbasaur; Tag: KOR; Nature: Naive; Trade History: Self-Redeemed; OT: 맛데이치킨; ID: 29722; Proof: WC; Notes: Did hatch and checked this pokemon's Nature, Gender, then i unsaved for leave it unhatched state Price: Offer
Team Plasma Deoxys; Pokemon: Deoxys; Tag: KOR; Nature: Jolly; Trade History: Self-Redeemed; OT: 플라스마단; ID: 05043; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
Strongest Class Metagross; Pokemon: Metagross; Tag: KOR; Nature: Adamant; Trade History: Self-Redeemed; OT: aT센터; ID: 05053; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
Concert Piplup; Pokemon: Piplup; Tag: KOR; Nature: Hardy; Trade History: Self-Redeemed; OT: 음악회; ID: 12152; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
Concert Piplup; Pokemon: Piplup; Tag: KOR; Nature: Lax; Trade History: Self-Redeemed; OT: 음악회; ID: 12152; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
Gen6
WCSK 2014 Houndoom; Pokemon: Houndoom; Tag: KOR; Nautre: Timid; Trade History: 해민(Naver cafe user) -> 레몬Lemon(Naver cafe user) -> me; OT: WCS14K ID: 07064; Proof: WC; Price: Price: Offer
WCSK 2014 Aggron; Pokemon: Aggron; Tag: KOR; Nautre: Brave; Trade History: 해민(Naver cafe user) -> 레몬Lemon(Naver cafe user) -> me; OT: WCS14K ID: 07064; Proof: WC; Price: Price: Offer
Hope Diancie; Pokemon: Diancie; Tag: ENG; Nature: Naive; Trade History: notyourmama12 me; OT: Hope; ID: 07245; Proof: Video; Price: Offer
20th Anniversary Manaphy; Pokemon: Manaphy; Tag: GER; Nature: Mild; Trade History: lifeshoutslive me; OT: GF; ID: 06016; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
HA Distribution 2015 Serperior; Pokemon: Serperior; Tag: GER; Nature: Quiet; Trade History: lifeshoutslive me; OT: Geschenk; ID: 01225; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
HA Distribution 2015 Emboar; Pokemon: Emboar; Tag: GER; Nature: Calm; Trade History: lifeshoutslive me; OT: Geschenk; ID: 01295; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
HA Distribution 2015 Samurott; Pokemon: Samurott; Tag: GER; Nature: Careful; Trade History: lifeshoutslive me; OT: Geschenk; ID: 01295; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
XY&Z Pokémon Tyranitar; Pokemon: Tyranitar; Tag: KOR; Nature: Bold; Trade History: Self-Redeemed; OT: XY&Z; ID: 10196; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
XY&Z Pokémon Gengar; Pokemon: Gengar; Tag: KOR; Nature: Adamant; Trade History: Self-Redeemed; OT: XY&Z; ID: 10196; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
Pokebank Celebi; Pokemon: Celebi; Tag: KOR; Nature: Quiet; Trade History: Self-Redeemed; OT: 맛데이치킨; ID: 38997; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
Gen7
Ultra Spooky Cup Shiny Mimikyu; Pokemon: Mimikyu; Tag: ITA; Nature: Adamant; Trade History: _Keroroh_ -> me; OT: PGL; ID: 102618; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
x2 Sorrel's Lucario; Pokemon: Lucario; Tag: KOR; Nature: Serious; Trade History: Self-Redeemed; OT: 민준; ID: 171209; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
Lillie's Alolan Vulpix; Pokemon: Alolan Vulpix; Tag: KOR; Nature: Modest; Trade History: Self-Redeemed; OT: 릴리에; ID: 170822; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
Pokémon Sun & Moon Alolan Vulpix; Pokemon: Alolan Vulpix; Tag: KOR; Nature: Naive; Trade History: Self-Redeemed; OT: 썬문; ID: 170404; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
Pokémon Sun & Moon Alolan Grimer ; Pokemon: Alolan Grimer; Tag: KOR; Nature: Sassy; Trade History: Self-Redeemed; OT: 썬문; ID: 170502; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
Pokémon Sun & Moon Alolan Diglett; Pokemon: Alolan Diglett; Tag: KOR; Nature: Lax; Trade History: Self-Redeemed; OT: 썬문; ID: 170502; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
Pokémon Generations Zygarde; Pokemon: Zygarde; Tag: KOR; Nature: Adamant; Trade History: Self-Redeemed; OT: 제너레이션즈; ID: 180620; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
Snorlium Z Munchlax; Pokemon: Munchlax; Tag: KOR; Nature: Brave; Trade History: Self-Redeemed; OT: 혁진; ID: 868920; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
Ultra Shiny Kyogre; Pokemon: Kyogre; Tag: KOR; Nature: Modest; Trade History: Self-Redeemed; OT: 울트라; ID: 180127; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
Own Tempo Happy Hour Rockruff; Pokemon: Rockruff; Tag: JPN; Nature: Adamant; Trade History: Lord_Van-Cren -> me; OT: A r i a; ID: 759746; Proof: Picture with A-button; Price: Offer
Mallow's Steenee; Pokemon: Steenee; Tag: KOR; Nature: Naive; Trade History: Self-Redeemed; OT: 마오; ID: 170919; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
Akala Island Shiny Tapu Lele; Pokemon: Tapu lele; Tag: KOR; Nature: Timid; Trade History: Self-Redeemed; OT: 아칼라; ID: 181130; Proof: WC; Price: Offer
Gen8
Dawn's Piplup; Pokemon: Piplup; Tag: KOR; Nature: Hardy; Trade History: 일본국대가즈아(Naver cafe user) -> me; OT: 빛나; ID: 220601; Proof: Picture with A-button; Price: Offer
"Pokémon Get Challenge 2020 Pokémon Volcanion; Pokemon: Volcanion; Tag: JPN; Nature: Timid; Trade History: Govul -> ShaikhAndBake -> me; OT: ゲッチャレ; ID: 201120; Proof: Video; Price: Offer
"Pokémon Get Challenge 2020 Pokémon Genesect; Pokemon: Genesect; Tag: JPN; Nature: Brave; Trade History: Govul -> ShaikhAndBake -> me; OT: ゲッチャレ; ID: 201120; Proof: Video; Price: Offer
"Jirawiwat Thitasiri's Clefairy; Pokemon: Clefairy; Tag: ENG; Nature: Bold; Trade History: orthocresol -> ShaikhAndBake -> me; OT: Jirawiwat; ID: 220618; Proof: Video; Price: Offer
Wolfe Glick's Gigantamax Coalossal; Pokemon: Coalossal; Tag: ENG; Nature: Modest; Trade History: MochiPori -> ShaikhAndBake -> me; OT: Wolfe; ID: 210813; Proof: Video; Price: Offer
Teresa Roca Hisuian Growlithe; Pokemon: Hisuian Growlithe; Tag: ENG; Nature: Lax; Trade History: ToastyMonkey -> me; OT: Teresa Roca; ID: 270222; Proof: Video; Price: Offer
Teresa Roca Hisuian Growlithe; Pokemon: Hisuian Growlithe; Tag: ENG; Nature: Lax; Trade History: ToastyMonkey -> me; OT: Teresa Roca; ID: 270222; Proof: Video; Price: Offer
Pogo shiny
Premire Ball Shiny Genesect; OT: 혁진; ID: 594487; Self-caught in GO
Poke Ball Shiny Celebi; OT: 혁진; ID: 594487; Self-caught in GO
Premire Ball Shiny Articuno OT: Could be customed ID: 594487 Still in GO
Premire Ball Shiny Tapu Koko OT: Could be customed ID: 594487 Still in GO
Premire Ball Shiny Tapu Lele OT: Could be customed ID: 594487 Still in GO
Premire Ball Jarude OT: Could be customed ID: 594487 Still in GO
Reference

submitted by Kirinkirby to Pokemonexchange [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 14:11 Kind-Access-8930 last ap chem project

experiment for my ap chem class
im a junior in highschool and our final project is to make a experiment. my teacher has 3 molar acetic acid and im gonna put an egg in it to show the caco3 dissolving in the acetic acid once its put in. How could i make the 3 M acetic acid higher molarity without asking him to make another batch, and what kind of molarity should it be? i dont wanna make him waste materials, so how could i make the 3M acetic acid work quicker? I have a 200ml beaker on a hot plate and im heating it up to go quicker but i feel like i need a higher molarity solution (i dont wanna ask for another higher molarity solution) i know baking soda would make it go slower, so what could i add to act as a catalyst maybe?

submitted by Kind-Access-8930 to chemhelp [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 12:05 Exotic_Pace_622 Best intelligent document processing solutions you've tried recently?

What are the top best-in-class enterprise document processing solutions these days?
For context, I'm looking for a solution that really hones in on effortless use that can be adopted by large teams across industries with high regulatory compliance like financial, healthcare, et al. Bonus points for anything with robust/well thought of automation workflows baked in. (It could be AI powered).
Anything you'd recommend? Ty!

submitted by Exotic_Pace_622 to ITManagers [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 01:38 Busman1221 Dropping a summer course

On the uOttawa website it says that if I drop one of my courses before the 24th I’ll get a refund, but only if my status changes from full time to part time. I don’t understand tho, does this mean when I drop my course even before the 24th I won’t get a refund for that specific class if my status doesn’t change? Also from 4 to 3 classes would put in me in part time right?

submitted by Busman1221 to geegees [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 23:55 sadallthetimeagain [1127] Moving Right Along

I felt myself getting a little heated in today's CASA group discussions about "trauma." For every 10 times you'll hear that word, "resilience" will come up maybe once. I think most of us are aware of how arm-chairy and buzzworthy trauma and therapy have become. It's one of the latest cultural trends that facilitate a fluidity to presumed-more-informed conversation, without the practice of developing finer lines of understanding and distinction.
On the basis of your invocation of "trauma" you can rush to provide "help" and "services" and begin blaming an incredible amount of "mental health issues" or "unresolved childhoods." It's literally the cliche of a freshman's behavior after enrolling in their first college psychology course on blast. They've already invoked unsubstantiated pseudo-science and pop-culture explicitly not psychology as tools to provide frameworks for understanding your families. When someone infers substance abuse from a story just because the accusation was levied or any kind of drug was referenced at any level, their conclusions or assumptions go unchecked. It's predictably baking a recipe for an unnecessary mess on top of whatever the family is going through.
You can feel the tension every time you speak in "checking" ways. This happens to me routinely. One of the presenters spoke to the biased and incomplete ways that foster parents or aggravated family members might speak to the nature of the case or anyone's character. I pointed out that case managers can leave out details and massage stories to fit their ends as well. That got ignored and we moved right along. It's a real concern, and you need to know how to protect your relationship with someone who might be specifically directed to undermine your effort to advocate with the evidence.
But it doesn't feel "pleasant" or "decent" when you "want to believe the best" about your colleagues. Is it less true? Absolutely not. I was literally forced into that position from predatory supervisors and watched dipshit coworkers skip along those disingenuous lines without hesitation. Anecdotes fawning over better-inclined and capable FCMs do nothing to erase that.
So I started thinking about "discomfort" broadly. Another concept that's been wholesale abused. We needed to be way too on guard for what or whether we said might be a "micro aggression" or would cause someone to feel "unsafe" or "uncomfortable." Again, our pop psychology and propensity to overstate the noisiest out-ragers, made it so critical thinking and doubt became sinful in and of themselves. Facts don't matter in that space. "Being heard" is afforded only if you're claiming victimhood, but then, only victimhood of a certain type. The own-goal that is reactionary politics when you forgo any genuine attempt at taking someone's, almost certainly mostly irrational but nonetheless real, concern seriously is the ongoing consequence we get to suffer.
I think the more you practice observing conversational patterns, word choices, and trends, you can start to see previously "abstract" things considerably more acutely. One thing I notice is a propensity for "moving right along." I don't care what the topic is, there's a "normal" pace and pater that is preferred. Violate that, and it's time to move on. Point out the failings of the people you're supposed to trust most or even ingratiate yourself to? Let's move right along into the next module, as we all know there's nothing much more to say about that.
Another pattern I notice is the "taken aback pause." It's not precisely a reaction to being "offended," but it's a stark enough detail or way of relaying information that who you're speaking with was not prepared to engage that intensely. If they're quick, it'll be a brink-of-condescending acknowledgement before moving-right-along, or if they're not quick, it'll be a placating obfuscating of what you said to "even things out."Again, these are imprecise norms of conversational behavior around the particulars of one culture at one point in time, but they're real and of consequence whether or not you can see them.
When we use the word "bias," we let ourselves off the hook on the myriad ways it manifests. We let "bias" obscure in the opposite way that we let "trauma" obscure. Trauma is abused to over-explain what should be considered a necessary series of responses or consequences. Bias is abused to overlook how deeply it colors your propensity to engage that over-explaining behavior. You are biased, first and foremost, to your subjective experience of reality. In my experience, almost no one is that clued into their own flow of experience. Even the ones that are, or are showing the most growth and evidence, struggle, and will struggle indefinitely. This includes myself.
That's the point, though. You need the struggle to keep your wits about you. You need appropriate stressors against the things that will help you grow and incorporate. By definition, norms put that insistence to the side so we can all find a baseline mutual understanding to move right along down. The more cliched you sound, if you don't have a reflex to pause and pull back, the more you're training yourself to believe and act on "just whatever it is you say." You're a circular and totalitarian monster by default.
Add to that, you may not have any real ability or willingness to recognize how many cliches you truly are under the spell of. This is what the unironic attempts around discussions of "privilege" do a generally miserable job of explaining. We all have privileges up and down hierarchies and competencies and dozens of other metrics we fluidly transition through all day. None are necessarily going to jar you awake or indicate there's anything worth examining on their own. Your cohort speaks your language. Your education taught you the "right" things. Your hobbies and interests conform to a person of your state and stature. "It's just how things are done."
This provokes people's insecurity as a standing state of a lack of readiness. When you poke people, you'll find they don't have "real" reasons for their behavior, beliefs, or words. It's all been handed to them. They're a series of unconscious forces they're more or less molding to because that's how our brains work. Your brain doesn't care what it forms a pattern around, just that it can do so. There's survival reasons for this, as well as a story of basic capacities to function regardless of the nature of the environment that's all-but certain to otherwise kill you if you can't figure it out.
I, routinely, provoke that insecurity. I've learned to show considerably less ambivalence about the person after they've been provoked, but it happens just as an ongoing and predictable course of my practice. This is my practice. I analyze. I pull back. I try to identify and speak to patterns, even if they're abstract, but certainly concrete enough for me to anticipate them and work with or around them. I know what kind of response I need built into what I can reliably anticipate is going to be yours. I know how to piss off and get ignored by "the internet," and I know how to illicit a thousand likes. What's important to me is that I'm speaking as closely to my real perspective or agenda as possible, and not being driven by an elusive brain chemical game subject to the mercy of algorithms or inarticulate desires to unhealthily fit in.
I want to fit in, but with an ever-winnowing type of person. I want to be less-wrong in the information I share, but not at the expense of someone's capacity to hear it or learn from it if I can't be bothered to temper how I say it. I want to grow in my capacity to accept people, but not at the expense of their obligation to better account for and relay their own experience. I've been told my whole life that I'm not allowed to expect the same things from other people as I might of myself. I think this is fundamentally wrong and condescending. I think I should maintain the expectation while doing everything in my power to reduce the barriers to any one person getting to whatever heights you think I've managed or been born with.
Here again, we stay lost. How do you remove barriers you can't see or might even be dispositionally against even acknowledging can exist altogether? How many "boot straps" types can even be bothered to acknowledge the impact of the villages they're living in? How many "deeply empathic" people would entertain pairing their sensibilities to the word "toxic" under any circumstance? It's pretty easy, now, for me to see when my forthright manner acts as too blunt an instrument. Can you see where your baseline disposition and sympathies cloud your judgment and capacity to act more accountably?
I feel like "accountable" itself is poorly understood. Just count! Count the disquieting contradictory thought. Count the intensity, frequency, and severity of the feelings. Count the attempts to mitigate or times you recognized forgoing to do so. Accountability doesn't mean wildly wielding an axe to bring down dramatic consequences upon everything and everyone that wasn't noticed until now. It's just asking yourself, over and over again, what can I control about this situation? What can I act on that speaks to my values and perception?
Let's take the real world example of me and Byron. I can't control his perception of what he thought he was doing in service to the kid. I can't control his awareness of any creeping mental health issues that might have arisen. I can't control whether or not he responds affirmatively to my new boundaries. I could control telling him what those boundaries were altogether, so I did. I can affirm that I'm only going to communicate along the lines that hopefully help the boundary conditions get met before I'm willing to get more colloquial or back to friendly. I can respect that he told me our friendship is "invaluable." I can't truthfully say I think we'd be using that word in a mutually understood way until I see practical, tangible effects upon my life that counteract where I feel I am as a direct result of my expression of friendship getting grossly taken advantage of.
Until then, I'll treat him like I would any client. Show me. I'll patiently-enough nod along, provide whatever perspective or reframe that I can, and remain open to demonstrated behavior changes. I don't have to throw myself back into his fire. If I'm going to claim a desire to protect and maintain genuine friendships or care for those in my life, I'm not going to treat myself with the ambivalence I see others suffer from themselves every day.
I choose that level of discomfort. I only mildly complain today, as it's gotten dramatically better, about doing things alone and never having anyone to hang out with. Byron was my go-to spot for killing time or hanging out. Not once in my free time have I said, "You know, fuck my boundary, let's hang out there!" How could I look myself in the mirror? How could I advocate for you establishing better boundaries with people in your life? How could I ignore what I would characterize as gleeful and willful defiance of doing "better" than playing out battered-wife excuse making? I will not play-act friendship with someone who can't be bothered to work as hard on themselves or in service to me as I've been for them. That's not the kind of friend I am, so it's not the one I'll let back in lightly.
What's normal, though? No matter how bad someone fucks you, forgive and pretend to forget, right? They're "family." Life's too short. It is what it is. They didn't mean to or weren't aware. That's not who they were in the past. Holding grudges is unhealthy. Your insecurities around being isolated or alone betray you. Your obligation to play along and appease your mutual network takes over. Whether any real healing or mutual understanding comes into the equation is perfectly mute because we need to just move right along and "love each other."
I watch that dance justify literally every conceivable level of atrocity. It is the exact same self-servicing motivatedly ignorant pattern. From your god's behavior right on down through your secret satisfaction and smirk at punishing your pet a little too aggressively just that one time. What you don't account for counts on you to carry out its consequences. And you are, every day, in big and small ways, and it's predictable and fixable, but only with stuff like this. You have to own it. You have to "yes, and" like it's an improv class. You have to perpetually entertain the thought that you are a misguided monster, but that fact doesn't have to dictate your behavior going forward nor need to illicit some special amount of stress or talking in circles.
Then you might have a prayer of genuinely helping anything, because you see how you're otherwise fucking it up within yourself. You can resist the insistence to move past meaningful details. You can point to specific repeatable demonstrations of your values. You can see other people responding to your confidence of relatable recognizable capacity, and not the shadow game of peacocking virtue signaling and mantra echoing.
I will spend thousands of dollars, use all my tools, and spend every waking hour I have trying to help. I think most people I've met would say the same thing. Who is actually doing so? And in service to whom? Do you trust what drives them? Do you see equitable put in get out dynamics? Or is it codepedence? Or insecurity? Or some noble story of infinite sacrifice and unconditional love?
I'm willing to set the conditions because I expect better than what's normal of and for myself. Were circumstances reversed, I wouldn't treat you as I've been treated, and most importantly, have the demonstrated behavior from myself to trust. I've spent the time and money. I've opened the conversations. I've challenged the mismanaged powers and privileges. I've risen to the challenge of creating circumstances that inch me closer to what I actually want or think is better versus what's expected of me. It never ends. Every second you pretend otherwise, you disappear, and I have to fit your abstract abdication into my specific constructs.

submitted by sadallthetimeagain to self [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 23:39 StateSeveral3361 Is he stalking me or am I being too much?

I’m a freshman in college and last semester I met this guy who has kind of become my friend. I say kind of because we are friends through situation rather than choice. This guy is the president of a club that I became the secretary of on campus and a research student under one of my professors from last semester (who I am friends with) and because of this I see him often enough. He got ahold of my number after I became part of the club group chat and since then has privately and casually texted me, which I was at first uncomfortable about, but brushed it off as I didn’t think he was weird and his texts were normal. I didn’t really think anything was weird about him until this semester. He started randomly touching the ends of my hair and patting my head which I have repeatedly told him not to do which he completely ignores and continues doing anyways.
He also started getting upset if I forget to text him back (I have a lot going on in life and we are not close friends) He complains to my sister about it (she goes to the same college) and when he sees me on campus he says that “I need to fix my texting and communication problem.”
What really made me feel uncomfortable about him is that a few weeks ago we had a long conversation about random things, which was fine, until he started asking me what I was most afraid of. I brushed him off and said something silly, but he kept coming back to it throughout the conversation over and over and over again. I finaly said that I wasn’t afraid of anything (genuinely I’m not) and I threw the question back at him and he said “hmmm, I haven’t really thought about it”. We talked about favorite animals and he asked the question again “ what are you afraid of?” My sister came by and he abruptly changed the topic and became quiet.
EDIT: In the above mentioned conversation he was asking about friends that I had outside of college and I mentioned that I had a few (without specific detail who they were) and somehow married friends came up in the conversation. He asked if I ever dated and if I was ever going to get married. I said that I wasn’t interested in dating or getting married right now as I am working on my career and college, then I tried changing the topic. He proceeded to talk about how we are both old enough to marry and that college shouldn’t be an obstacle because he knows a lot of people in the specific profession I am working towards getting into married while in college. He also said that it was providential and “what are the odds” that we met at college and “sometimes the right person comes along and we just don’t know it yet.” He then asked how many kids I wanted to have, which I told him I didn’t know and threw out a random number, I was honestly shocked he would even ask me that (it doesn’t seem like something you would ask someone that you have known for less than a year). He said and I quote, “ if you said four, I’d ask you to marry me right now.” So to the person in the comments who said that “we are dating” I am beginning to realize that he really thinks we somehow have something more going on, regardless of how many times I have made it clear to him that I am not interested in him whatsoever.
Just before that conversation he invited my sister and I to a dinner party at his dorm and because I didn’t want to be rude, I said sure and went. While I was there we watched a movie and afterwards he brought out a guitar and said I could play it if I wanted to, then asked me to play some Spanish guitar. I asked how he knew that I could play Spanish guitar and he said that he had found and looked at my mom’s Facebook page and saw that she had posted some videos of my playing among other things like the cakes that I made for my sibling’s birthday and the things that I baked. It wouldn’t be so weird if it wasn’t for the fact that those posts and videos were from 2018 and he had dug through hundreds of videos and posts to find them. On top of that he never talked about any of the posts that pertained to my sister. Little while later he played music (for about three hours straight) and the entire playlist was romantic songs, to which he tried to get me to dance with him. He asked if my sister and I could dance and we both said we knew how to waltz. My sister offered to teach him how to, but he kept insisting that I do it, and to avoid awkwardness, I did it. I waltzed him right into the couch so I didn’t have to keep going as I was very uncomfortable.
After the conversation, I have been avoiding him as much as possible and texting him as little as possible which has been hard because he started to wait outside my classroom for me to get out of class and follow me around campus until I would leave (I commute). I ran into him at a college picnic about two weeks ago and when he saw me he abruptly turned away from the picnic and headed to his dorm. I was sitting with a few of the professors and they were all shocked that he would turn down free food. A little while later he came by and sat down next to me at a table and rubbed my back asking if I was okay (I have some health issues that he is aware of). I subtly moved away from him just far enough to let him know I was not comfortable with his attention and he got up in a huff and went to play a yard game. Every few minutes he would look over to see what I was doing and just stare. I stayed with the professors and didn’t leave until the picnic was over and walked back to the college with one of my professors.
His texting has become a little strange too. He used to rarely use any punctuation and now all of his texts are like this “(my name)!!! How are you??“ “ What are you doing?!?!?! Just about every single text has an exclamation mark after it.
Is this stalking or am I being too much?
The text messages: https://www.reddit.com/useStateSeveral3361/comments/1cs06ng/texts_from_him/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

submitted by StateSeveral3361 to RBI [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 17:44 SpiritedBrilliant703 Why this Startup was bound to fail

It's a hard truth that most startups inevitably face failure. For healthtech company Kiteline Health, that reality recently hit home as they shuttered operations after a three-year journey. While the closure is undoubtedly painful, founder and former CEO Candice Hampson has chosen to openly share the valuable product development lessons she learned along the way.
Kiteline aimed to provide B2B2C health coaching for people with chronic conditions like cancer, helping them improve lifestyle habits and longevity. Despite serving hundreds of users and creating expert-guided content, the product itself missed the mark in several critical areas that ultimately led to the startup's unraveling.
Hampson's candid postmortem outlines six key takeaways that any founder - especially non-technical ones - should take to heart when building and evolving a tech-powered product:

As CEO, Product Leadership is Your Job

In an early-stage startup, Hampson admits she didn't fully grasp that spearheading the product vision and roadmap fell squarely on her shoulders as the leader. Attempting to hire a dedicated product head proved challenging for their modest budget. She had to learn product management skills on the fly while juggling the myriad other responsibilities of driving a new venture.

Find Your Evangelists, Then Build For Them

Kiteline's initial focus was solely on cancer patients before pivoting to a broader B2B2C employee wellness offering. This expanded market allowed early client acquisition but also flooded them with competitors. Hampson learned that rather than immediately pursue massive audiences, startups should first zero in on a niche user base that loves the core product concept from the outset.

Relentlessly Refresh Customer Insights

After their market pivot, Kiteline failed to consistently re-validate what their new target customers - employers and HR managers - truly needed and valued in a wellness platform. This led to developing generic, commoditized offerings rather than addressing acute, underserved problems.

Prioritize Your Differentiator

Rather than first tackling the innovative kernel that made their solution unique and testing its market viability, Kiteline built basic capabilities like scheduling tools that could have been bootstrapped or licensed initially. Startups should strive to prove their game-changing core premise before overbuilding commodity features.

Get Constant User Feedback

With a tiny team, Kiteline struggled to continuously gather user insights and swiftly incorporate that feedback into prototypes and product iterations. Making this a cultural priority allows startups to rapidly course-correct and validate whether they've achieved product/market fit.

Design Engagement From the Beginning

Kiteline's platform saw high initial sign-ups but poor retention and engagement over time. Hampson stresses that dedicated user stickiness mechanisms need to be baked into a product's DNA from day one rather than tacked on later.
While it's a brutal lesson for any founder, Hampson's transparency provides an instructive master class on avoiding common product pitfalls that can derail even the noblest startups. Her reflections are a testament that smart pivots and constant customer learnings are table stakes, but successful products ultimately hinge on prioritizing the right use cases with ferocious focus.
Building a tech-powered venture is never easy, but arming oneself with insights like these can help steer a smoother path.
Hopefully you enjoyed this article here's another you might like as well
"Lessons from going freemium: a decision that broke our business"

submitted by SpiritedBrilliant703 to SaaS [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 17:23 ElectricalPen1174 changing lifestyle to accommodate boyfriend's celiac disease

My boyfriend [23] and I [21] have been dating for about 7 months. He has celiac disease, and he's adamant on there being no gluten not only in the kitchen but any part of the property in his future home. Baking bread has been a huge hobby of mine for years, I've spent so much time getting better and better to give great homemade pastries and breads to the people I love.
On one of our first dates he asked me if I'd be happy if he bought us a separate kitchen in the home, and I said in response "Of course not, that wouldn't make sense." He wanted to make me happy, but he's changed his mind and realized it's something he wouldn't want. It didn't fully hit me what giving up gluten would mean to me before a friend offered me a spot in pretzel- making class at the King Arthur Baking school. I realized, what is the point in taking the class when it's a hobby I'm going to have to give up entirely. I said no, when I really wanted to say yes.
I asked him if he would forbid me from even buying myself a space separate from the home, like an outside shed with an oven, sink and counter, so that I could continue baking. Even if I did everything possible to prevent any contamination where we actually lived. He was not comfortable with it at all.
I have had my boyfriend over countless times for dinner, breakfast etc., and I've dedicated an oven in my home to baking his food in there. I make him gluten free desserts too. I'm very careful with cross contamination. I'm happy doing what I do now, but I don't know if I can live like I have celiac disease, the way he wants me to. Knowing there's a time limit on me baking bread, pizzas, pastries, for myself and the people I love, is so so hard for me. It is such a huge part of my identity.
I guess I'm making this post because I'm specifically wondering if it's something I should sacrifice. He does so much for me, he treats me so well, and I thought love comes with huge sacrifices. My family loves him. But every time I bake something for my friends and family, it makes me sad. I know that there are gluten free baking recipes, but the process and result is just not the same. I want to give him the best gluten free dishes I can make, but I also want to continue giving away the pastries my friends and family love.
tldr, I don't know if it worth sacrificing a huge my identity because of my boyfriend's celiac disease.
edit: for those not reading/misreading my post: i asked him if he would let me build a small kitchen separate from the home. i never asked him if i could prepare gluten foods in the same place he eats/prepares food.

submitted by ElectricalPen1174 to relationships [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 15:30 Nathan256 I’m DMing 7 different games at once! Help!

Hi everyone, I have a weird problem and maybe you can help. I’ve prepped a new module that I just bought for about five months ahead of a campaign I’m starting with some friends and their friends. We had our session zero and everyone had some super cool character ideas. I’ll list them out for you in case that helps with your ideas

there’s a Tabaxi rogue whose whole thing is that he once found a ball of string and played with it until he became proficient with it like a whip, but he gets super distracted like a cat and wanders off.
there’s a cleric of Pelor that wants nothing to do with evil but is secretly a cleric of Asmodeus and is evil and wants to go make sacrifices for his dark god
there’s literally just Batman. It’s a homebrew class and he has a side quest to find the bat cave.
there’s our sorcerer who was struck by lightning to get his powers and forgot everything and mistrusts everyone
there’s an old lady who cares so much about her grandkids and just wants to protect them and bake pies for them. She’s also a rogue.
there’s a warlock whose patron tells him to steal things from the people closest to him. I was worried if he’d really get into the RP in a game that’s supposed to be cooperative, but he assured me he’d steal from anyone and everyone.
there’s a pandafolk monk who was trained by a Tortle monk and a Human monk who Polymorphed himself into a red panda kung fu master. His quest is to find his family, which we’ve decided is in the south. He just got news that that’s where they are, and he’s planning on going there immediately. Also he is the Dragon Master.
there’s a bard who has seven children by eight different mothers, one of who is a dragon in disguise, and now they’re all chasing him to collect child support.

Anyway we had our session 1 where they all met in a tavern and started talking about the quest with the quest giver, but the pandafolk monk refused, cause he said he’d heard news about his family and he had to go. Then the old lady said she couldn’t leave her grandkids behind, and the tabaxi got distracted by his string. Then the warlock stole the plot device map from the quest giver’s room and ran off while no one was looking, and the party failed their perception checks to notice him. The sorcerer locked himself in his room cause he didn’t trust the party. Our Batman character saw a bat signal in the sky (I have him roll a d4 every time he casts a spell, and on a 4 he sees a bat signal and has to respond to it).
So the only two who accepted the quest are the bard and the cleric (who I think has to become an Oathbreaker Paladin soon but I’ll need to ask about that in q different post), accepted the quest. And now I’m running a split party in 7 different places and I have to prep all their different adventures. We’re on session 12, and the pandafolk just got to his hometown and is facing off against a villain that we based off Bruce Lee. I’m a bit tired with all the prep I have to do for these sessions. Is this normal?
What can I do to force my players to work together? I don’t want to restrict my players agency, and I want to make sure they’re following their character motivations. However the story is completely derailing, and the cleric just sided with the BBEG and has the bard captured, so now all my prep for the campaign is out the window. Are there any rules for running combat in 7 different places at once? Would it be bad to use a spell to make my players characters think they can trust each other and compel them to seek each other out? I think it would almost take longer for them all to find each other at this point.
Please help!!
Also any homebrew rules for pie baking would be appreciated. My grandma player is not too happy with the system I made.

submitted by Nathan256 to DnDcirclejerk [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 15:24 STLhistoryBuff Weekly Events Thread 5/13/24 - 5/19/24

Please, feel free to add any events below! Check out the Visitor's Guide for more things to do around town!
Looking to meet up with people? Check out Meetup St. Louis.
Be sure to continue scrolling past the Weekly Events for Trivia Nights, Live Music, Sporting Events, Local Comedy, and more!

Bacon Fest at Alpha Brewing Company
- May 19, 2024
- Bacon lovers, rejoice! Alpha Brewing Co. is hosting a sizzling event on May 19. Tickets to Bacon Fest include all the bacon and beer that you can consume – plus, live music from two bands.
Cardinals HOF Presents: Flashback Fridays
- May 17, 2024
- Visit the Cardinals Museum for a candid interview in our Sportsman's Park Theater with former Cardinals Catcher Mike Matheny on Friday, May 17th at 4:30pm.
Cardinals HOF Presents: Saturday Signings
- May 18, 2024
- Saturday, May 18th is Saturday Signings with former Cardinals Catcher Mike Matheny from 2-4pm in the Cardinals Museum!
Chess at the Brewery
- Every Wednesday
- Local meetup group of chess players that meet at breweries on Wednesday nights. They rotate locations each week.
- See their Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/chessatthebrewery/) for the location this week.
Chinese Culture Days at Missouri Botanical Garden
- May 18 - 19, 2024
- Chinese Culture Days at the Missouri Botanical Garden feature colorful Chinese pageantry, music, dance and art.
- At the event, you can also immerse yourself in the history and legends of China while enjoying traditional cuisine.
E.T. Bracket Series at World Wide Technology Raceway
- May 18, 2024
- The E.T. Bracket Series presented by Carl’s 4WD & Performance Center at World Wide Technology Raceway allows drivers in different vehicles to compete on an equal basis against each other.
Family Night with Fredbird
- Wednesdays
- Join others at Cardinals Nation Restaurant & Bar for Family Night with Fredbird on select Wednesday evenings this off-season! Bring your family down for games, prizes, and meet Fredbird from 6:30-7:30pm.
Karaoke Wednesdays at HandleBar
- Every Wednesday
- Browse the catalog and find your favorite songs to sing! Songbookslive.com/stlredcarpet
Karaoke Wednesdays at Mack's Bar & Grill
- Every Wednesday
Landmarks Downtown Walking Tours
- Every Saturday
- Landmarks Downtown St. Louis Walking Tours: History, Culture, Architecture, and Exercise: What could be better on a Saturday morning.
Native American Art of the 20th Century: The William P. Healey Collection at St. Louis Art Museum
- February 23 - July 14, 2024
- Native American Art of the 20th Century: The William P. Healey Collection celebrates a transformative gift of outstanding works by Native American artists active across the 20th century. The promised gift of 100 works establishes a critical junction between the Saint Louis Art Museum’s deep collection of pre-1920 Indigenous art and a growing emphasis on the contemporary.
Open Mic Night at Schlafly Bottleworks (Maplewood)
- Every Wednesday
- Join others every Wednesday evening and showcase your talents with our Open Mic Night! Open sign up begins at 6:30PM with music starting at 7:00PM. They welcome original material, covers and spoken word! Grab a beer, then play and listen every Wednesday! There are no cover charges and no drink minimums to attend.
Pointfest
- May 18, 2024
- POINTFEST returns to Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre - St. Louis on May 18.
Ranken Technical College Midnight Madness at World Wide Technology Raceway
- May 17, 2024
- The Ranken Technical College Midnight Madness program fueled by NOS Energy Drinks offers a safer alternative to illegal street racing.
- Organized yet informal drag racing will take place on the confines of World Wide Technology Raceway’s NHRA-sanctioned ¼-mile drag strip on select Fridays throughout the season.
Soulard Farmer's Market
- Wednesdays - Saturdays
- Soulard Farmers Market is located at 730 Carroll Street in St. Louis, Missouri, a half mile north of the Anheuser-Busch Brewery. The market is open Wednesday through Saturday, year round. They feature locally grown and shipped in goods, including: produce, meats, cheeses, spices, gourmet kettle corn, flowers, baked goods, and general merchandise. There are also several different eateries that have many food options, which allows customers the convenience to grab a quick bite to eat and a drink while shopping.
St. Louis CITY Block Party
- May 15, 2024
- Before the St. Louis CITY SC vs LAFC match kickoff, get the party started early with happy hour on Lou Fusz Plaza at CITYPARK and live DJ entertainment! CITY SC presents the free CITY Block Party featuring DJ Chris Brown as well as local food and beverage vendors, fan giveaways, and games and activities for all ages. The block party is free and open to the public.
St. Louis CITY SC Street Party at Schlafly Tap Room
- May 15, 2024
- In celebration of ALL home soccer games, Schlafly will close down "Louligan Street" and support our team the only way they know how: great food, drinks, and fun. There are beer tents, food trucks, special (game day and late night) menus, and more. Get here early and park!
Sunday Bingo at Tim's Chrome Bar
- Every Sunday
- Get in the mood for some fun with an afternoon of BINGO at Tim’s. They'll supply the cards and daubers. Just bring yourself and your BINGO loving friends. Play for some good laughs and a variety prizes. Bar opens at 12 p.m., they'll start BINGO at 3 p.m. Cheers!
Sunset Rooftop Yoga at Ballpark Village
- May 16, 2024
- Unwind on the rooftop of Ballpark Village in St. Louis during a one-hour yoga class led by YogaSix.
- After the session, nama-stay for exclusive happy hour offers such as $3 domestic beers and $5 select cocktails.
Taste of Maplewood
- May 17 - 18, 2024
- The Taste of Maplewood brings together our area’s most renowned restaurants, beloved boutiques, and one-of-a-kind novelty shops for a street party with live music on two stages, all in the heart of downtown Maplewood. Join us on Friday night for live music and a sampling of food vendors before the main event kicks off on Saturday.
- In its 16th year, the festival’s vibe is distinct and unmistakable, radiating the culture and character of the local businesses.
Thursday Nights at the Museum
- Every Thursday
- Kick off your weekend at the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park! Each Thursday Night at the Museum will be the most fun, engaging, uplifting, thought-provoking, perspective-shaping night of your week. And there are drinks.
- Join others starting at 5:30pm for happy hour and pop-up activities, such as brief tours, games, and performances. The main stage comes to life at 6:30pm, light appetizers and drinks are available for purchase until 7:00pm, and the Museum’s exhibits are open until 8:00pm for you to explore!
Tower Grove Farmer's Market
- Every Tuesday & Saturday
- Join others every Saturday of the 2023 Tower Grove Farmers Market Season. They'll have over 100 vendors with local produce, meat, flowers, eggs, honey, prepared foods, art, jewelry, live music, and so much more.
Vietnam: At War and At Home at Soldiers Memorial
- Running until May 27, 2024
- In 'Vietnam: At War and At Home' at Soldiers Memorial Military Museum, the story of the war’s origins, execution, conclusion and legacy are presented in engaging, accessible and evocative ways. The exhibit presents a diverse and holistic snapshot of the turbulent times in Vietnam, in the U.S. and in the St. Louis region.

Sporting Events This Week	Attractions Around the Area	Comedy This Week
St. Louis Cardinals schedule	Anheuser-Busch Brewery	Funny Bone Comedy Club
St. Louis Blues schedule	City Museum	Helium Comedy Club
St. Louis City SC schedule	Gateway Arch	The Improv Shop
St. Louis Battlehawks schedule	Missouri History Museum
St. Louis Billikens schedule	National Blues Museum

Trivia Nights
Location	Date/Time	More Information
Anheuser-Busch Biergarten	Tuesdays 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm	Trivia Details
Bar K	Tuesdays at 7:00 pm
City Foundry	Thursdays 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Crack Fox	Mondays 6:00 pm - 10:00 pm	They host a weekly free tournament and game night. Emphasis on Non Alcoholic refreshments and camaraderie.
Joey B's on the Hill	Mondays 8:30 pm - 10:30 pm	Trivia Details
Nick's Pub	Mondays
Felix's Pizza Pub	Tuesdays at 8:00 pm	Trivia Details
ITAP (Delmar Loop)	Wednesdays at 7:00 pm
ITAP (Soulard)	Tuesdays at 7:00 pm
Schlafly Brewpubs (Any Location)	Tuesdays 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm	Trivia Details
Rockwell Beer Co	Tuesdays	Trivia Details (Reservations required)
The Mack	Tuesdays at 8:00 pm	Trivia Details
The Pat Connolly Tavern	Wednesdays at 7:00 pm
The Post	Wednesdays 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm	Trivia Details
Pieces Board Game Bar & Cafe	Wednesdays	Trivia Details
HandleBar	Thursdays at 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm	Trivia Details
Steve's Hot Dogs	Tuesdays 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm	Trivia Details
Wellspent Brewing	Thursdays at 7:00 pm

Live Music This Week
*Music Venues*	*Live Music Around Town*
Blueberry Hill Duck Room	1860 Saloon
Chesterfield Amphitheater	BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups
Delmar Hall	Broadway Oyster Bar
Enterprise Center	City Foundry
The Fabulous Fox Theatre	Gallery Pub
The Factory	Game 6 Honky Tonk
Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre	Gaslight Lounge
Off Broadway	The Heavy Anchor
Old Rock House	Jazz St. Louis
The Pageant	Joe's Cafe
Red Flag	The Lot on the Landing
The Sheldon	Tim's Chrome Bar
St. Louis Music Park	McGurk's
St. Louis Symphony Concert Calendar	SoFar St. Louis Secret performances around town
Stifel Theatre	Venice Cafe
	Yaquis on Cherokee

Recurring Outdoor Activities
Big Muddy Adventures – STL Riverfront Adventure	Big Muddy Adventures was established in 2002. They are the first professional outfitteguiding company providing access to the wild wonders of the Middle Mississippi and Lower Missouri Rivers.
Gateway Arch Events	There are a variety of things to do along the Mississippi River.
Hidden Valley Ski Resort	Ziplining, scenic chairlift rides, and hiking trails opened during the summer. Skiing, snowboarding during the winter.

submitted by STLhistoryBuff to StLouis [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 15:04 StateSeveral3361 Is he stalking me or am I being too much?

I’m a freshman in college and last semester I met this guy who has kind of become my friend. I say kind of because we are friends through situation rather than choice. This guy is the president of a club that I became the secretary of on campus and a research student under one of my professors from last semester (who I am friends with) and because of this I see him often enough. He got ahold of my number after I became part of the club group chat and since then has privately and casually texted me, which I was at first uncomfortable about, but brushed it off as I didn’t think he was weird and his texts were normal. I didn’t really think anything was weird about him until this semester. He started randomly touching the ends of my hair and patting my head which I have repeatedly told him not to do which he completely ignores and continues doing anyways.
He also started getting upset if I forget to text him back (I have a lot going on in life and we are not close friends) He complains to my sister about it (she goes to the same college) and when he sees me on campus he says that “I need to fix my texting and communication problem.”
What really made me feel uncomfortable about him is that a few weeks ago we had a long conversation about random things, which was fine, until he started asking me what I was most afraid of. I brushed him off and said something silly, but he kept coming back to it throughout the conversation over and over and over again. I finaly said that I wasn’t afraid of anything (genuinely I’m not) and I threw the question back at him and he said “hmmm, I haven’t really thought about it”. We talked about favorite animals and he asked the question again “ what are you afraid of?” My sister came by and he abruptly changed the topic and became quiet.
Just before that conversation he invited my sister and I to a dinner party at his dorm and because I didn’t want to be rude, I said sure and went. While I was there we watched a movie and afterwards he brought out a guitar and said I could play it if I wanted to, then asked me to play some Spanish guitar. I asked how he knew that I could play Spanish guitar and he said that he had found and looked at my mom’s Facebook page and saw that she had posted some videos of my playing among other things like the cakes that I made for my sibling’s birthday and the things that I baked. It wouldn’t be so weird if it wasn’t for the fact that those posts and videos were from 2018 and he had dug through hundreds of videos and posts to find them. On top of that he never talked about any of the posts that pertained to my sister. Little while later he played music (for about three hours straight) and the entire playlist was romantic songs, to which he tried to get me to dance with him. He asked if my sister and I could dance and we both said we knew how to waltz. My sister offered to teach him how to, but he kept insisting that I do it, and to avoid awkwardness, I did it. I waltzed him right into the couch so I didn’t have to keep going as I was very uncomfortable.
After the conversation, I have been avoiding him as much as possible and texting him as little as possible which has been hard because he started to wait outside my classroom for me to get out of class and follow me around campus until I would leave (I commute). I ran into him at a college picnic about two weeks ago and when he saw me he abruptly turned away from the picnic and headed to his dorm. I was sitting with a few of the professors and they were all shocked that he would turn down free food. A little while later he came by and sat down next to me at a table and rubbed my back asking if I was okay (I have some health issues that he is aware of). I subtly moved away from him just far enough to let him know I was not comfortable with his attention and he got up in a huff and went to play a yard game. Every few minutes he would look over to see what I was doing and just stare. I stayed with the professors and didn’t leave until the picnic was over and walked back to the college with one of my professors.
His texting has become a little strange too. He used to rarely use any punctuation and now all of his texts are like this “(my name)!!! How are you??“ “ What are you doing?!?!?! Just about every single text has an exclamation mark after it.
Should I tell someone about this? Is this stalking or am I being too much?

submitted by StateSeveral3361 to Stalking [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 13:26 PestoForDinner A summer of discontent from Ottawa’s unions is worth the heat

It’s paywalled, so here’s the text:
Federal public-sector unions are moderately miffed by the government’s plan to compel their members to work from an office three days a week. They are promising not a revolution, nor a paralyzing general strike but, in a very Canadian touch, a “summer of discontent.”
That discontent is likely to take the form of a flood of grievances from some of the 400,000 or so affected workers who will now have to trudge into the office an additional day.
There’s a political front, too, with the unions appealing to the NDP to put pressure on their parliamentary allies to back off. The unions are not going to take what they view as a diktat sitting down, or at least not sitting down in an office chair.
It might be a managerial and political headache for the Liberals, but it’s a pain well worth bearing. The government is right to call its workers back to the office, both for reasons of cohesion and efficacy in the public service, and for the beneficial effect it will have on increasingly derelict urban centres and underused transit systems, particularly in Ottawa.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada insists that the whole exercise is an unnecessary provocation, and that civil servants ensconced in home offices are more productive than ever.
The union’s assertion is hard to square with the bloat in the ranks of the public service since the Liberals took office, a hiring spree that continues to accelerate. In 2015, the overall federal civil service numbered 257,034, down significantly from the 2010 count of 282,980. The Liberals had reversed those supposedly severe cuts by 2019 – and then went on to hire 70,000 more workers in the next four years.
Are those workers more productive, as PSAC claims? Or is the record pace of hiring simply making up for the hit to efficiency from an atomized workplace? There are no definitive data, but one fact is clear: the period of accelerated bloat certainly coincides with the arrival of the pandemic and the shift to working from home.
The negative effects on municipal economies and operations are much more clear. Downtown Ottawa is a shadow of its prepandemic self; ridership on its transit system, as with many other cities, has yet to fully rebound. The government’s move to increase office working hours will put more people on transit, and more dollars into the downtown.
There are legitimate concerns, particularly how it will square with the government’s parallel effort to shed surplus office space. The complexities of hotel-type shared office space will need to be ironed out. And there should be flexibility for individuals who can demonstrate real hardship.
But the unions’ frontal assault on the policy is not justified, particularly the intimation that management is breaking a compact with its workers. That is not the case.
The unions had a chance to make work-from-home guarantees the centrepiece of their labour negotiations last spring. Instead, they chose wage increases, with PSAC securing a handsome average cumulative raise of 12.6 per cent over four years. At the time, the government took a tough line on ceding control of a core right of determining where employees work – a correct stance in our view.
The unions cannot now turn around and resurrect the demands they dropped from the bargaining table in exchange for those wage increases.
PSAC does have one thing right: the government’s move to dial down working from home will ripple through the rest of the economy. As the country’s largest single employer, the federal government’s policies will give some added leeway to any private-sector employer looking to bring its workers back to the office.
The entire debate underscores the growing gap between the modern labour movement and the working class. Once synonymous, their experience and interests are now diverging. Truck drivers, plumbers, cashiers and construction workers don’t have the option of a comfortable berth in a home office. That is the prerogative of the keyboard class.
The federal civil service is already awash in perks that most Canadians can only dream of: ironclad job security and defined-benefit pensions fully indexed to inflation, and fully guaranteed by the federal treasury, are just the two most obvious examples.
The Liberals have indulged the civil service for far too long. Perhaps the return to the office can be the start of a more disciplined approach.

submitted by PestoForDinner to CanadaPublicServants [link] [comments]

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