Declamation high school

TLDR; I like Fiu because I’ve been there a lot in high school and I personally think that they would have the better connections for my major but the contrast is I don’t know about how my financial would look like after freshman year and I don’t live very close to my campus so I would be catching the bus because I cannot afford housing after this summer. For MDC nothing in particular about their program caught my attention however because I’m in the honors college, I find it to be a safer route to take, and I think I might be misjudging the situation.
Can somebody please advise me what is the best decision to make? I have posted something like this in the sub already, but I have recently been reconsidering my decision since I have gotten my financial aid offer for the fall and spring semester yesterday. I got excepted into the accepted into the pathway STEP, I will be getting $1000 per semester this year, I have the gold and blue scholarship which amounts to $1500 for my whole academic year, and I also get $600 per semester for doing a high school program at FIU. I do have a meeting with a program coordinator where I will be going over my financial aid, but from my understanding right now, I will be able to completely afford Fiu this year without coming out of pocket. I already learned a little bit about what my schedule would look like at Fiu and to be honest I like it there, I do eventually want to go law school and from what I have heard fiu has a good law school.
There are two major downsides to attending Fiu though. One I do not know how my financial aid would look after the first year, and it would not beat the financial aid offer that I got from MDC regardless. At MDC, all of my classes and tuition will be paid for. I’ll have a $600 stipend and my financial aid money would be going into my pocket. Secondly I live by the Biscayne Bay campus, however, I am admitted into the MMC campus. I can afford housing for a summer program that I am doing, but afterwards I would be taking the bus for transportation every day. However, I’m not 100% sure that I would be getting amount of opportunities there and due to my past experiences, I am kind of inclined to Fiu still. I also am worried about My MDC offer because I need to keep a 3.5 GPA and cannot withdraw from any classes. I know that there is the Connect2Success program and I can really have the best of both worlds, but I am worried about losing my scholarships and not being able to afford FIU after these two years. What do you think I should do?because I cannot make a decision to save my life and I’m honestly inclined to both 😔

There's way too much stuff in this subreddit about magnetism in a purely arrogant way, about walking around and all women dropping before you. This is absolutely against the goals of retention. I get that is aimed at folks with poor self-esteem that have never been looked at with desire by a female, but I think it's not healthy for them either, since it'll cause an objective focused retention and, frecuently, the consequent desillusion and falling deeper into dispair. This sort of "I'm an absolute beast and everybody falls before me" should be pursued ONLY when you aim at being a sort of super warrior who will give his life to fight for the good of his people. Then there's this mysoginistic retention where you just believe yourself to be a DemiGod who is just "above women", not above lust. This should only be pursued if you search a truely spiritual path, and if it is so, you should aim all your energies at being ordained a priest/monk, not at being smug on the Internet. On both those cases (warriomonk), SR is, albeit essential, only a small part of what you need to do, not a be-all-end-all that will by itself and maybe ginger tea and cold showers magically "manifest" your destiny.
Now, for the average folk, we all should learn from great warriors and monks, we should be prepared to both sacrifice ourselves to fight the forces of evil in the material world and be spiritually unaffected by their deception. No matter your worldview, I think we can all agree that the world is turning more evil everyday. But these forces are not new and there are many examples before us to continue their struggle.
Now, why do SR, then? Not because of seeking benefits, however true this is. Doing Adderall has many "benefits". Doing opioids has many "benefits" for people with certain illnesses. Drinking has "benefits" for creative writing. Of course, SR benefits are blessed and not a "borrowing", but it can manifest its downsides (even if they're just a "test") a few months, even weeks in, whereas many people abuse other stuff for years before it catches up with them. And, specially in current society, if we trick our monkey brain with this incentives we can fail, ajd it's most likely.
Why, then? Two reasons: 1) Masturbation, even without porn, is an insult to nature. When I first tried it after a kid at school told me, I felt absolutely disgusted. And no, I had been told NOTHING moralistic against it, neither am I a kind of "restrained" person, as a kid I did many things others would punish me for just because I thought I was right or it was fun. This was a true defilement. I've never felt comfortable looking at a woman lustfully in the street, or sneaking at a friend's... or whatever (and I've never been precisely a left-wing or feministic person). I feel repulsed by friends who can't stop making sex jokes and, when someone says they would ... a girl that walks them by I get an instinct to slap them. I feel nausea when a girl talks about their sexual habits or vulgarly describes their sexual organ as mere animalistic stuff in the college dorm eating room. The only time I had a one-night-stand I felt the whole next day crying desperately, not for moral reasons, as an uncontrollable reaction, like YOUR BODY JUST PUKES when you drink too much. Mind you, all this before SR, so all FreudoMarxists with their subversive theories on how we are sexually repressed and that causes us to seek masculinity and be imperialistic and stuff can go fuck themselves. This is not a "Christian society" repression. Ancient Greece understood the beauty and glory of the human body and its eroticism like no other culture. It's not about sculpture. If you read the Iliad, the beauty of a great warrior just lifting a sword, weeping before the beach, being taken by a dream... is seen in the divine splendour it truely has. Now, Greece was no puritan society, of course you had the Dyonisiac rites, but they had a sacred function. Plato talks in the Symposium (and this view was shared by many before and after him but he expressed it in perfection) how the Eros is the most beautiful for in nature, it moves beehives and waves, lovers and gods. But if it's reduced to a purely animal instinct, a mere frotting of organs of high sensitivity, it turns into the biggest sin because it spits against a force that moves to the higher deeds. Funnily enough, Nietzsche, who despised everything Plato represented for humanity and was himself a chronic masturbator (at least when young) ONLY agreed with him in this. Back to Plato. He talks about how, before the fall of men, in the ideal realm, humans were androgyn, we were one whole being and, the gods, envying us for being in such harmony with ourselves, nature, and beauty, fearing we might overcome them, split us in half and condemned us to seek reunion. This myth is shared in many pagan traditions (Hinduism, Aztecs, Siberian Paganism, pre-Buddhist Tibetanism, Buddhism, &c.). It is compatible also, in my view, with the deeper meaning of Genesis. Whether you believe it's an alegory or holds a deeper truth is barely relevant. The thing is, there IS a perfect supreme state in which the masculine metaphysical force and the feminine converge and ascend into a supreme form of being. Unmoveable, untouchable, ethernal. 2. That leads me to the other reason. I don't want every woman to look at me in the street. I don't cashier's voices to tremble at me. I've always been quite fit (now many people ask me if I'm on roids, and I'm not even two years into lifting, I just have privileged genetics in that sense) and I was "gifted" as a kid, so I've always had a lot of attention, whether good or bad, and it's been mostly bad (crabs bucket, &c.). I want to purify myself because, beside loving truth and beauty above all else and feeling animalistic lust defiles it, I don't want to hurt my anima. There's a perfect other soul out their who I'm destined to join to become one till death do us part. A girl created just for me and me for her. A girl who, when I look at, I will feel, as the Divine Commedy says, "the love that moves the sun and the other stars". A girl who I'm destined to spend my life helping grow spiritually and being helped by. Whenever I descend into lower states of being and defiling myself, I hurt her spiritually, same goes for her. This exchange has been happening since our conception and maybe even before, and it will continue at least after death. If we turn ourselves into lower beings, we sink into deeper and deeper distance from that which makes us perfect, and we waste our lives in a loveless marriage, in endless hookups, seeking material possessions, as drug addicts, &c. Monks, like Seraphim Rose, are destined by God to have their Anima in them since birth. This will cause deeper struggle but also a supreme state none of us otherd will reach. As Nicolás Gómez Dávila said "The only thing that can console us of being men is that there were monks". I think I've met my Anima yesterday. That's the reason for the long post. I've lurked here for a long time and I wanted to summarize the best I could all my thoughts on this practice that I don't often read here, but I'm signing off this account in a few days, if any of you have any questions or want me to go further into some matters of the post I'll stay around before logging off.
But yesterday I felt in my heart not just "love" but that my search was over, that I was home. With the world being how it is now, I can't but thank God. God bless you anon. There is a divine force in you destined for true heaven.

I have always been very skeptical of the paranormal, atheist, and all that type of stuff, never believed on it, I might sound crazy typing this but please read.
Since 2022 I have been struggling a lot with depression/anxiety/addiction, the real depression, dropped out of high school, and severe health anxiety. i took all the antidepressants and benzos possible and nothing calmed me down, I was having physical symptoms, chest pain, left arm pain, went to the ER like 4 times and the doctors couldn’t find anything but the feeling was real.
I felt very tempted to end my life, held a gun against my head many times to get rid of this thing that I feel that’s just awful, I can’t hangout with my friends, go to college, even typing this is hard, I just feel awful physically and I thought well, there’s no explanation I will just take my pills until the day before yesterdaay.
I had a super weird dream where a spiritual session was being conducted and all the faces of the people were blurry, a gender neutral voice, leaning towards female was conducting the session. And she said “now we’re gonna have (my moms name) join us, and as she said that I could feel my whole body with a weird sensation like my energy, my soul was being pulled out of me, then my mom “arrived” and the female host conducting the session asked while me and the other memebers were feeling the sensation “do you feel it?” as if we were supposed to feel something as my mom joined.
Then the voice said a few random things and said that a new person would be joining us, that person would be my stepdad and as he joined I felt that pulled out of body sensation and woke up as it was too much for me to handle. I woke up desperate, went to my mom’s room and asked her to sleep with me, in the morning I told her everything and she said it was probably just a nightmare. I told her that I wanted to talk to a priest.
Today, as I was falling asleep and my eyes were closed I felt a presence in my room so i decided to open my eyes, I saw, for 0.00001 seconds a very tall figure of a human like being, I don’t know if it was a human because i could barely se it, I just knew it was very tall, maybe grey? I thought well that’s nothing, but then as I tried to sleep I felt something weird, I felt like evil was around me, pure evil, unexplainable, I just could feel it, and called my mom to sleep with me, this was 3 hours ago.
I’ve already been to the doctors who always diagnose me with anxiety but this thing is new, I have been on tons of medications and it doesn’t work. I know this can sound stupid and absolutely insane but I feel like a demon or an evil entity might be following me. What do I do? I already said that I will be talking to a priest but what else in the meantime? I am scared, and if there is actually something with me it would explain a lot of my problems.

I’ve started a new job as the director of a school in my area. My boss does not live near the centre so they only visit five times a year. So many things have happened since I started the role, and I’ve had little support from my boss.
Every time we have a meeting, they rush me off the call and I can’t voice my concerns. The staff turnover rate is extremely high, and I know why, but I’m unable to fix this without the help of my boss. Since I’ve started, my boss has micromanaged every decision I’ve had to make regarding things that need to be implemented into the school in order for it to run successfully. Apparently, this is the first time they have micromanaged decisions of any director that they have hired.
This job has impacted my mental health due to the lack of support I’ve received. I want to stay because I love the families and the staff. They have told me they think I’m doing a fantastic job and like having me as the director.
I’m conflicted on whether I should stay and hope things get better, or leave because I see the potential the school has.

Hello! This is going to be long. Thank you for your patience and insight. :)
I'm a translator and I'm currently working on translating a book that has a certain character and I want to make sure I represent them appropriately, but it's going to take a bit of explaining, I think.
WARNING: I'm going to discuss this character and the events surrounding his (accidental) coming out which do involve a small amount of violence, so please read no further if that makes you uncomfortable.
So, first off, the book is Japanese and the character is male and calls himself an onee, which is a Japanese term that literally means "older sister" and is used for a man who uses feminine speech (Japanese has a much bigger difference between masculine and feminine speech styles than English) and sometimes dresses in what's traditionally considered a feminine way. They are not necessarily gay (though many people incorrectly assume they are [this character is not]) and they are not trans (though many people lump them in with transwomen out of ignorance [with the caveat that what is and is not considered trans is different in Japan than in English speaking countries, but I think it's safer to say they're not, this particular character considers himself a man]).
Ok. So, getting to the meat of the problem is next go to the scene in question. Basically, the son (high school aged) is at home while the rest of the family is out. The family comes home to find him trying on his sister's dress. The father shouts, "Are you some kind of pervert?" and hits him. The son shoves his father back and says, "Yeah, Dad, I've always been an onee."
What I'm struggling with is what to do with onee. This is a novel for casual readers and this is a minor character, so I'm not sure this is really the space to explain exactly what an onee is to the English readers, so I kind of want to translate it to something that is true to the character but easy for the audience to take in.
Ideas I'm toying with are, "Yeah, Dad, I've always been queer," or even "Yeah, Dad, I've always been fabulous," (which hopefully gets to the speech pattern aspect of an onee?). Or a queen?
So, thoughts?
PS: While the character is high school aged when this happens, he is now 40-ish so older slang would be ok too, since this would've happened in the 80s.

I have a classmate. Let's call him Tobi.
I consider him a close friend and naging crush ko siya, nung Grade 11 pa (I'm currently a Graduating Grade 12 Senior High School Student.) I decided to confess to him last February 2024, and he rejected me. I won't lie, nung una nahirapan ako mag-initiate ng conversation sa kanya pero weeks passed by and we finally got talking again. We got comfortable around one another and I think we even got more close pa nga kasi I finally let those unhinged feelings out. I considered my confession to him as a closure and I finally moved on from him.
Now, I found myself attracted to another person from another section. Let's call him Alex.
I don't shy away from my feelings when I like someone. Kaya pinahalata ko na I had a new crush. I was physically attracted to Alex, and I was curious because I wanted to get him more; I added him on Facebook, Instagram, and any other social media platform I could. I asked questions about him from my classmates na naging classmate si Alex before.
I made it obvious to Alex na I like him, and out of the blue nireject niya ako. I didn't confess to him pa no'n, pero inunahan niya na ako. It kind of made me off na may ganyan palang tao na inuunahan ka i-reject bago mag-confess. (This will all make sense later.) Pero tanga rin kasi ako, gusto ko pa rin pero it was a lot more less na. Siguro if happy crush ko siya noon, naging admiration nalang. I definitely lost a lot of interest in him, pero there were still a bit of feelings left pa. Pero I was on my way to moving on from him din.
Furthermore, Alex is kind of like me. Vocal din sa feelings niya. Nagpapahalata siya sa Facebook using shared posts na may crush siya tsaka Instagram notes with romantic songs.
And napansin ko na magkakilala pala sila Tobi and Alex beforehand pa, and magkaclose pa nga yata. I often catch Tobi mentioning Alex few times when we talk kaya I assume na close sila and they talk on a daily basis.
I'm kind of an analytic, kaya I tried connecting he dots and I came up with the funny conclusion na what if crush pala ni Alex si Tobi? Or the other way around?
I opened that conclusion to a few of my friends na kilala si Alex and sabi nila na 'Halata' raw na crush ni Alex si Tobi, and I didn't want to jump into conclusions pero that definitely made me alarmed.
The night before, mga around 11 PM, Tobi messaged me wanting to talk to me in person.
Syempre, kinakabahan ako kasi confrontation and biglaan. I told him sure, and we settled to talk around 5 PM after ng clearance namin. I mentioned na I'm kind of an analytic, kaya I wanted to prepare myself for every possible outcome that we would talk about, and funnily enough. Yung una talaga naisip ko is sila na ni Alex.
And I was right.
Yesterday afternoon, he told me saying na Alex confessed to him last week, and he had been wanting to tell me looking for a right time pero he couldn't. Kaya he had to initiate na mag-usap kami one-on-one. He admitted na mali siya. Kasi hindi niya siya nireject, and inentertain niya pa nga. He started developing feelings for him din. And he's saying sorry sakin. He tried ending it with Alex din naman, kasi nga magkaibigan kami, pero tinanong daw siya ni Alex kung gusto niya bang i-end and I guess he really didn't want to.
Masyado raw ako pure na tao para masaktan niya. Ang dami ko na ginawa sa kanya, hindi lang as a classmate, but as a close friend din. And gusto rin sana bumawi sakin positively, pero puro negative nalang binibigay niya sakin. Nasaktan niya na kasi ako nung una, tsaka sasaktan lang din ulit.
He started blaming himself din kasi when he first entered a relationship with someone he made a lot of mistakes, saying na he hurt a lot of people. Tsaka ngayon he's disappointed na he hasn't learned from his mistakes and yet again has/will hurt a lot of people.
I guess I didn't really measure the extent of situation. Oo, sabihin natin na I had a clue pero I wasn't really assured na totoo nga, pero nangyari nga. I was dumb. Tama ba na tawagin ako na people pleaser? I said na okay lang. I told him na nahalata ko na rin before, pero I really didn't expect na my hunch would come true. I told him na tao lang din siya. Whether he likes it or not, he's going to make mistakes. And I'm glad na he said it to me harap-harapan kasi it showed na he valued our friendship. We ended up hugging it out with him crying behind my back..
I have a really bad habit of processing my feelings really late. And nung gabi ko lang nadama na ang sakit nga.
I really don't know what to do. This feeling is all so similar nung nireject ako ni Tobi. It feels like I'm back on square one again. I don't know how to talk to him. I thought about cutting him off din, pero I'm hesistant. I still value our friendship. And is it worth losing a friend over? I'm not sure, sorry po.
Never in a million years would I imagine na ganito ang magiging kalabasan ng pag-graduate ko sa Senior High School. I don't want to end up on bad terms with anyone. Pero being hurt by the same person twice? And by the person that I treated as my friend. Hindi ko na talaga alam. I told my friends about my situation pero they don't know what to do rin kasi it's all too complicated and messy.
Is there any way I can do to fix this? What should I do? I really don't know po talaga. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you so much po! :(

Hi! I'm looking for any instructors (preferably familiar with NZSIA levels) to weigh in on a few things;

• Would you say level 2 is a lot harder than level 1? I watched the videos but it looks quite basic, not sure what are the distinct difference aside from greater board control in both normal & switch
• Is having Lv2 a big boost for hireability or not really?
• What about a dual Lv1 qualification for both ski and board? Would that be better or a Lv2 in just one?
• How difficult is it to get hired direct with any of the above cert combinations? Particularly Japan, NZ or Canada

I am looking to do a certification course and just weighing up my options. I'm a teacher by profession (high school business), and love getting certified in my hobbies for the fun of it.
I've skied since I was 8 and just finished my 2nd season boarding and have cleared Level 4 in lessons ("You can snowboard on all intermediate slopes with confidence and speed control is not an issue.") I befriended a few instructors and they said I should easily pass Lv1, which is what got me thinking about it.
I currently live and teach in Japan, and am taking the next 1-2 years off to travel and enjoy the snow so thought it'd be perfect time to try out working at a resort combining my passion for teaching with a hobby :) I also spend half my time in Australia, so NZ is also an option.
Unrelated but I also plan to get lessons in Japanese ground tricks, and since they only seem to be available in Japanese (which I speak) it might be cool to leverage that as a bonus 'skill' in the future maybe!
Sorry for the ramble and TIA!
P.S. if you ever find yourself in Japan, feel free to reach out! 😊

I'm looking for a meme of a black gorilla looking at the sunset with Titanium by David Guetta playing in the background. The video is in a very bad quality and the gorilla is looking directly to the camera, I found this video back in 2019 when i was in high school, it is one of my favourites memes and the profile that upload the video has been deleted with the video. i forget to download the video because i didnt think that i will lost it so i need help from reddit to find the meme. im looking for a guy that somehow has it in their storage and is willing to share it with me.
i have been looking for it with a friend for a really long time already, and its not working out. i really want to see it again because its the funniest video that i´ve have seen in all my life

TL;DR: Why all decks are "7s" and how they're probably actually "5s".
Let's preface this by saying that numerical power level descriptions are objectively bad, because they don't describe the deck and its composition when most people want to have a certain kind of a play experience. It's better to describe your deck in terms of what it does and how fast it does that.
This post does not defend numerical scales nor does it endorse their usage. It simply attemps to explain and describe the underlying problems. However... A take I haven't seen yet is to address why all decks are "7s". The answer is rather simple: they all are!
Most people build their own decks or at least upgrade their precons. Many people say they have "one precon for the situations where it seems like the rest of the table is playing lower power decks". This implies that people have multiple decks and that they're probably stronger than your average precon. Yes, precons are wildly different in power; new precons are more potent than the early ones so it's kind of silly to treat them as a single group. Bear with me, though. Overall this puts us in a situation where most custom decks are better than precons. Emphasis on "custom": not many people build decks that are at precon level. If precons are at the table then it's most likely all precons.
Similarly, cEDH players tend to have one power deck and a few others that aren't as powerful than their best deck. Again, implying that the vast majority of an average [cEDH] player's decks aren't cEDH. Heck, there are levels to cEDH, too. Some are tier 1 but most are not, they're probably tier 1.5 or tier 2 decks just because we know that the distribution of winners on https://edhtop16.com/ is not even. There are a few top dogs and vastly more decks that fall short of being among the best.
If our scale starts from 1 and goes to 10 it's probably best to place the realistically lowest power decks (early precons) at the very bottom of the scale. That's a 1. For the sake of this argument let's say that the better precons go progressively to 2 or 3 on this scale. Similarly let's say that cEDH decks are most likely score 9 or 10 on this imaginary scale. This puts almost all custom decks in between so probably from 3 through 8.
If, for the sake of argument, we assume that most players have some deckbuilding skill but not the best we can safely assume the varying skills fall on a normal distribution (a bell curve, if you are more familiar with that). People probably build at their skill level meaning their decks also probably fall on a normal distribution.
__/ ͡ \__
A normal distribution has two important properties: it has a middle point and a width. Technically the ends taper out to infinity, but we'll come to that in a minute. Middle point is simply the average value of the set being studied. In mathematics it's called "mean". On our scale that is 5.5, because (1 + 10) / 2 = 5.5.
The width is defined by "standard deviation" and it's a mathematical property that describes how "wide" or "flat" the curve is. The area under the curve defines the standard deviation from the mean. Mostly you need to know that one standard deviation to both directions covers 68.3% of the area under the curve, two standard deviations covers 95.5% and three standard deviations covers 99.7%. Can you see where I'm going with this?
One standard deviation can be any number but all it means is "68.3% of all values fall between mean - standard deviation, and mean + standard deviation". If we set our standard deviation to 1.5 we see that 99.7% of all results fall between 1 and 10! This is because 5.5 - 3 x 1.5 = 1, and 5.5 + 3 x 1.5 = 10. This makes for a nice distribution where almost all values fall between 1 and 10. We don't have to care about the outliers (the remaining 0.3%) in this thought exercise.
What does that mean? Well, according to this model the most average player, equipped with the most average deck building skills making the most average deck has a power level of 5.5. Most decks (almost 70% of them) are between 4 and 7. This would translate to going from upgraded precons all the way to high power, but not cEDH. Vast majority (95%) of decks are between 2.5 and 8.5. This translates to players almost exclusively brewing decks that are mid tier precon level or near-cEDH.
So most decks indeed are 5.5s. Why do we say 7, though?
Two reasons:

1. School system and grading
2. Illusory superiority effect

The first one stems from the fact that in many places ~50% of points on an exam will yield a barely passing grade. This often translates to getting a 5 on a scale from 1 to 10 where anything below that is a fail. In other words in our example scale a "passable deck" is a 5. This shortens the available scale from 5 to 10 where 5s are precons and 10 is cEDH. When people don't know what to say they often say a value that is about average where 7 seems like a good compromise. This is why, by the way, on many psychological tests and well executed polls the scale has an even number of options: this way the respondant cannot choose a middle option. Instead they're forced to take a stance one way or another.
Another effect that comes into play is the illusory superiority effect, where people often estimate themselves being better than average. Not by much, but just conveniently and believably a little amount. A famous example is a study conducted in 1981 in Sweden and USA about driving skill. In USA 93% of the respondents said their driving skill is better than average. This is obviously impossible, because we know that half (bottom 50%) of the population has worse driving skills than the other half (top 50%). It's normal and okay. People do it all the time. For our example doesn't 7 seem like a nice compromise between average (5) and top notch (10)?
Summing up: most custom built decks indeed are average (which is why you see them so often) but people often suffer from bias placing their own average deck at a little above average. So when we say "7" we actually mean "5.5".

Hey! I'm 24(f), been singing most of my life but haven't been on stage or in a band since high school.
Most of the posts here are from the US, so this is probably a long shot, but if you're like me and just want to get together and make music again, please send me a message!
I know this sub is more popular with people who enjoy harder rock, but I wouldn't say my voice is particularly suited to that. I can sing along with songs from most genres but if you're looking for someone who can scream, that's not me (I mean, I can do a pretty mean scream normally but not to music!)
Here are some of my favourite songs at the moment to give you an idea of what I like to sing to:

• Birds of a Feather, Billie Eilish
• Pretty much all of Chappell Roan's new album, especially "Good Luck, Babe!" And "Red Wine Supernova"
• Chemical and Sunflower, Post Malone
• Winner and Killing Me, Conan Gray
• Your Funeral and Sweat You Out My System, MAY-A

I know these are mostly recent, popular songs by popular artists but I hope you can get a feel for the kind of music that makes me happy!
On the off chance you're interested I would love to chat!! 😊

Since childhood, I have wanted to be an artist and learn drawing in high school. However, the heavy burden of study prevented me from pursuing this passion. After the university entrance exam, I chose Math as my major. In my second year of university, I tried to learn drawing again, but the stress of studying in the Math faculty was overwhelming. I vividly remember working very hard to finish all these hardcore courses, which led to an anxiety disorder. The medication for this disorder made me feel sleepy and slow down my brain, compounding the difficulty of managing the demanding Math courses in the third year of my college life. in such stress, I have to give up the dream of being an artist
I used to believe that choosing Math as my major would mean I would have no relationship with art for the rest of my life. Surprisingly, I was wrong. In my second year of university, I started playing a game called Universe Sandbox 2, which allows you to simulate planetary orbits and collisions. I also enjoyed a game called Space Engine, where the stunning scenes of alien planets captivated me. These two games, along with an article about the application of computational mechanics in the film industry, eventually these factors led me to the field of computer graphics, particularly the physics engine aspect.
In the final year of university, I began systematically studying programming, continuum mechanics, and computational mechanics. At that time, I was enrolled in a master's project. Initially, I fantasized about using my computational physics knowledge to create incredibly cool and realistic visual effects, such as fluid dynamics, fractures, and soft body simulations. However, I gradually realized the immense breadth of the computer graphics field.I spent several months on a book about computational plasticity, only to find that it could address only the simplest simulation cases, far from tackling complex problems like fluid-structure coupling and frictional contact. The primary programming language for computer graphics is C++, and I dedicated months to learn it, working through the C++ Primer. Despite these efforts, I only scratched the surface of C++ and computer graphics. Even with a solid foundation in C++ and computational physics, I still needed to learn rendering, an equally vast and intricate field.Furthermore, even I bypass the foundational theories and directly learning visual effects software, I will still face tons of challenges. Each area, such as cloth simulation, rigid body simulation, fluid simulation, and procedural modeling, is extensive and requires months or even years to master. Even skilled visual effects artists typically excel in only a few specialized areas.
I gradually began to lose hope of becoming an artist. I truly want to convey many cool ideas, like the concept of Europa (Jupiter's second moon) with its subsurface oceans evaporated and revealing under-ocean colonies during the Red Giant phase of our sun, or the idea of witnessing enormous solar flares from Proxima Centauri on the surface of a scarlet planet orbiting it. However, after realizing the immense complexity of the 3DCG workflow, it seems I may never bring these ideas to life.I can only delve into a specific field and work within its confines. I once hoped to use AI-generated content (AIGC) technology, but the results were disappointing. I began to doubt whether AI could generate animations with the stunning turbulence of fluid or smoke or handle complex multiphysics simulations. For example, a demo of SORA showcased two pirate ships battling in a coffee cup, but the fluid animation was poor. Moreover, AI can't grasp the nuances of my thoughts. now, I dream of technology that could accelerate my learning, but such advancements are still far off. but I can see some hopes,without this technology, no matter how hard I work, I will remain confined to a small sub-topic and unable to bring my ideas to life.

I’m 16m now, i was 9 when she came into my life. My mum passed away when I was 8 and it took a hard toll on me. I didn’t expect my dad to get with another women a year later, and it made me upset because while he was in the honeymoon phase with her I was being sidelined and ignored. They’ll always deny this happening but everyone in my family agrees that I was put aside so that they could be in love. I only knew they were dating while on holiday in Canada, he’d FaceTime her every night and whenever I wanted to sleep with him in the same bed while he was on FaceTime with her he’d get angry at me and grumble about it before we’d sleep. I think our relationship together started off really negative but it just kept getting worse. I’d bring up my mum or wanting photos of my mum up but my dad would talk to me and tell me how it made my stepmom uncomfortable. We stopped having pictures on the wall by the time I was 11, not a single photo of her was up. The same goes for me, my step siblings have so many photos of them up and I have one from when I was in kindergarten. I know my stepmom never planned on having another child, so me being there is just something she has to put up with. I have never seen her as a mother figure, not even as a mentor or someone to look up to. If I had to choose a mother figure I’d say my aunt (mums sister) is the mother figure I’d always want and she’s like my mentor. Despite trying to I just can’t get along with her, she always seems to be in a bad mood, I talk about my day and she just shrugs it off. I’ve moved schools and was telling her how I’ve made a friend group and it was the same old “oh that’s great” as she sits down and watches TV. Something that will forever rub me the wrong way is the fact she told me she was glad my mum died, she said it in front of my dad and my dad didn’t care. She told me how if my mum was alive then she could have made me hate her by telling her lies, even though we probably wouldn’t even be in this situation since my dad and mum loved each other a lot and I don’t think would get a divorce. It upsets me that my dad lets her shame me, I eat things after school and she talks about how I’m going to get fat even though I eat healthy and go to the gym and walk everyday. My parents believe that everything I do is because I am copying other people, they never believe me when I say I want to do things or that I enjoy things out of the norm for them. It makes it hard to talk to them because it’s like I try to be open but it’s never taken seriously. I’ve talked about how I want to go to university but they keep talking about how I’m going to go to unitech once I graduate which is something I don’t want to do. They have this ideal life style of how I look in the future when it’s not what I want. I’ve considered moving out so many times but I know I’d just get into more trouble. Another flaw she has is not respecting boundaries. She goes through my bedroom when I’m at school, she has my location turned on and she goes through my emails. I’m transgender and she has taken my binders as she believes that I am just trying to be cool by being transgender and it’s so annoying. She blamed me for my dad’s high blood pressure which was actually caused by two things 1. It’s genetic and 2. Him drinking often. She told me that by being trans I am stressing my dad out. I also can’t remember the last time she has said I love you to me this year, the last time she said she loved me was after I had tried to make an attempt on my life, which they never got me therapy for and believe I was just a little sad despite me making more attempts afterwards. Now that I’m at a new school my parents told me I’m not allowed to talk to counsellors and it just pisses me off they never take my mental health seriously. She has told me that I am not allowed to keep in contact with teachers from my old school despite me being close with a few of them. She only ever talks to me to complain about something I didn’t do when I didn’t realise it needed to be done. But tonight made me realise she doesn’t truly know me, I like baking sweet treats for people. I decided to make brownies for my new friend group. She came up to me after dinner as I was cleaning up to ask me why I made brownies, I told her they were made for my new friends. She told me I shouldn’t be baking to try and win people over and to just be myself, she then told me how I better not be going to the rainbow club and that she’ll be contacting the school about it and making sure I didn’t try and secretly join. She doesn’t trust me and she doesn’t know me at all, I enjoy baking for people that I care about and making brownies are for the people I am becoming friends with not some random people I know nothing about. Also ddint know where to add this but she has apparently always been not really affectionate as my step sibling said she would barely say I love you, only saying it when she thinks it’s deserved. My dad also calls her my mum and it upsets me because they know I don’t like when they call her that. I’m expected to pay for everything myself now that I have a job, I want to learn the guitar and they are making me pay for it and they haven’t helped me find a teacher at all. I also still haven’t gotten a birthday present and my birthday was in February.
This is just a big rant that I needed to get off my chest, I will never love my stepmom, she has hurt me so much, this is only scraping the surface. As soon as I am able to I am moving out and I’m going to cut her off, I’ll keep in touch with my dad but not her. I do not see her as a mother figure or a mentor. She makes me feel insecure and like my feelings don’t matter.

Learn how to study and work diligently.
Don't slack off in high school. Sure, you might still pass, but college and life afterward will be much tougher if you haven't developed a strong work ethic. Take the time to do your homework and be reliable with your responsibilities. Don't rely on your teachers to chase you down for assignments.

I don't even know why the fuck i didn't even bothered to kill or harm myself already maybe its because im a coward pissboy like ive been all my life. Theres litterally 0 point in not killing myself.
● Was born and live in one of the worst 3rd world countries
● Lower middle class family (basically just affording basic needs at this point)
● Only got few friends who are all social outcasts like me
● Am weak, skinny af and kinda ugly, and i got extreamly low appeal, pale skin with acne scars and damaged hair, acid reflux and overall poor health
● Extremely insecure, socially anxious, mentally weak and get offended and hurt easily (one of the reasons i'm socially awkward is the fear of me crying/stuttering/showing weakness if others try to pick on me and i've always imagined this scenario and i want to stab people to death when i see them talk loud and laugh with their friends and it makes me uncomfortable)
● Envious of other peoples lives all the time but making 0 effort to improve mine
● Missed out on all of my life, didn't do cool shit with friends, didn't form a proper romantic relationship, didn't learn a skill, didn't do the things i wanted to do, parents couldn't afford to buy me pc or consoles to play video games on (this one caused me to NOT EVEN SOCIALIZE ONLINE because all people talk about here is video games and anime and i couldn't get the references)
● Worst of all, lazy and got no purpose
I'm basically a boring nice sissy nerd boy. The sole and only good thing about me is doing good with my grades which i hate myself for it because it makes me look more nerdish and besides i hate my field of study. I don't even know what i was thinking when i chose it. In my country you have to choose fields in high school for context, (Science, mathematics and physics, Humanities and social science, STEM and ect) and i chose humanities therfore i can only major in certain fields which nearly all of them suck or atleast i don't like them. Law, psychology, accounting, management and finance for instance. (basically non STEM and non science majors.) I was good at one thing yet i fucked it up by being a dork. And the funny thing is i've been studying 2 years straight for the next months university interance exam. 2 years for nothing, for no purpose... why am i like this? 2 months from now i should choose my major and i'm so confused and hopeless and i don't know what my purpose really is anymore. I always wanted to make animations... but thats not gonna happen because im a loser that doesn't know how to man up and live.
Life is not about being me man. It's about being my ex(she didn't even see me as a partner and always said we were benefits lol). You know, having validation and attention all your youth, being rich, being good looking, having the things you wanted in life and living your life to the fullest whilst having a shit "MUH PERSONALITY" and sending "MUH NEGATIVE ENERGY" to the world by being a narcy attention slut.
It's about being my bullies. Being strong, social ,cool and again rich and having the things they wanted. It was never for me. And i doubt my situation would get better at this point. I've been talking about my problems with my friends and it helps a bit but deep down i don't want to let go of the past. After seeing all that i can't have a positive outlook on my life. And it would be difficult to fix all the problems i just listed. ( if wanted to go to gym i know i have to have 5 meals a day which my family couldn't afford and i have to take steroids thanks to me being utter genetic shit)
What should i do about the major and also how can i fix my mental health. Please be specific.

Hi Reddit. In the last week of my senior year of high school, I was in the restroom pooping, and someone took a photo of me over the stall and then he ran out. I don’t know how his person is. At the time, I didn’t do anything about it because there was nothing I could really do about it at this point, and I had other things going through my mind like paying for college. People started coming up to me and telling me “dude you got exposed” but I didn’t want to do anything because people already saw the photo. This whole ordeal was three years ago. My question is, if I were to make a police report today, is there any way they can find out who did it from three years ago.

Hi! I have had a VERY bad 2 years at the school I have done my ECT with, to the point now where my mental health is almost at rock bottom. Myself and others believe the school is setting me up to fail and I am not sure how much more I can take. I have a new job lined up for September, which is temporary one year contract (high chance to become permanent after the year). All of my colleagues at work are telling me to stay home (everyone excluding management) because of how poorly I am being treated. I am honestly worried about what is in store for me in the final term and want to avoid further slander. The stress of it all is leading me to a mental breakdown, I honestly feel like I’m going to be rocking in the corner by the end of the week. What are my options? I do not want to extend the ECT course as it will put me in an unsuitable position for the new academic year in my new job but also I am worried about them trying to sabotage me passing. Note: I have passed every part of my ECT so far. Any advice is appreciated.

So I (M24) met I'll call her Emily (F23) when I was 16 years old when we were in high school. We met because we had to do a group project together in our American Sign Language class. She was a very shy, soft spoken girl who didn't say a single word to anyone in class. We got along really well and she immediately became a good friend of mine. She had a boyfriend when the project started, but both of us knew that we started growing feelings for each other. The project we were working on was a live performance using a song and dance choreography. The song we used was "Are you gonna be my girl" by Jet (which is very fitting given what would happen later). By the time we were done with the performance, she had broken up with her boyfriend (or at least that's what she told me), and I had been single for a while. Initially, she told me that she needed some time to get over the breakup, and I was totally fine with that. I completely understood that she wasn't just going to get over a 2 year relationship overnight and be ready to date me right away. She and I had many conversations at that time about how we wanted to be together, she just needed time to recover emotionally from that.
6 months went by, and the conversation about getting into a committed relationship came up again. By this time, I had met her entire family, spent holidays with her, and bought her presents for Christmas (classic bf/gf stuff). Yet after all this time, she said that she was still not ready for a relationship. I had grown slightly impatient, but I knew that she had a hard time trusting men and "putting a label on things", so I waited. I waited another 6 months to have that conversation with her again. At this point, she and I were about to graduate college, and we both had talked extensively about what we wanted our future to look like together. I asked her to be my girlfriend, she said she wasn't ready. I asked her what was keeping her from wanting to be in a relationship with me, but she didn't have an answer. This started the first argument we ever had about what it meant to be in a relationship. I told her that we already did all of the things that anyone else would do in a relationship (besides sex), and it didn't make sense why she was so resistant to making the small adjustment. She wanted nothing to do with the conversation, so I dropped it. Another 6 months went by, and the same thing happened. A year and a half had gone by at this point, and she still insisted that she wasn't ready for a relationship. I asked her "do you just not want to be in a relationship with me?", and she replied "I just don't want to be in a relationship until I know that I'm ready". Every time I asked her how long she thought it would take for her to be ready, she'd say "I don't know" and try to move on to talking about something else.
Flash forward to when we are 19. We both already graduated, and she's in her first year of college. I had dropped out of college at this point, and I was just working odd jobs until I could figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Throughout this year, she would subtilty bring up what kinds of dogs she wanted to get when we moved in together, and what wedding venues she wanted to pick for our wedding. At a certain point I asked her "Why are you talking about us getting married if you don't even want to date me right now?". She would shrug her shoulders and say that it was fun to think about that kind of thing. Regardless of what I said to her, she would adamantly refuse to have a conversation about us "being official", and her actually being my girlfriend. We would kiss, hold hands, say "I love you", everything that you'd expect from a relationship. The only difference is that she'd always say that I was her friend when she'd introduce me to her friends or family. I really wanted to just give up at this point. I had no idea what to do, or what I could possibly change about myself to make it so I would be good enough for her. She knew that I wasn't seeing anyone else, and she wasn't either, or at least that's what she was telling me. I had convinced myself that if I didn't make it work with her, then I wouldn't be able to find anyone else. She kept reassuring me "If you just wait, I promise we'll be together", which I believed wholeheartedly. I just had no idea what would need to happen for that to actually be true. She had convinced me that I was the problem, "I have a hard time trusting you" she'd say to me. I had done nothing to make her lose trust in me. I had always been by her side, and I never was disrespectful to her. I knew that she had problems that she was going through, but I never held that against her. I had done nothing but be supportive to her and take care of her, but it seemed like it wasn't enough. She subtly would tell me things that I should change about myself to make her happier, which I was okay with at first. She would tell me that I shouldn't wear certain things or act a certain way around her, which I listened to. I thought that if I listened to her, then that would mean I would be able to change things. All I could do now is either wait or leave, and I chose to wait. She made it sound like I didn't have to wait long for something to finally change, but I was very wrong.
4 years later, I was coming up on my 23rd birthday. 6 years had passed since we first started talking, and nothing had changed. She was still giving me no indication that she was willing to change anything. By this point I was fed up. I had no idea what I could possibly do that would make any difference in what we were. I started to feel like I was walking on eggshells when I talked to her. She made me feel like I was one move away from messing everything up. I couldn't figure out what she wanted me to do. Every time I would talk about anything remotely romantic or "lovey dovey", she would just brush it off and not even acknowledge it. She stopped kissing me one day, and I didn't even realize it. She started slowly backing away from me without me even knowing. I still have no idea what I did. I thought I had to have done something to deserve the way that she had been treating me. I had no idea what was going on anymore.
The last conversation that we had about being together she told me "I thought you were over it by now, I haven't felt that way about you for a long time". I was crushed. She gave me no indication that she felt that way. She never told me that she wasn't wanting to pursue a relationship anymore. I didn't think that her backing away was because she didn't love me anymore. She started working a lot more, and seeing me less. She got really busy with work, and I thought that was taking up a lot of her time and energy. None of the things that she said were gonna happen ever happened. I look back at those conversations that we had about us having a happy life together, and my heart breaks. She made it sound like she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me, but now it seemed like she wanted nothing to do with me anymore. I still have no idea what happened, even as I'm writing this.
I know that I'll never get to see all of the things that she promised that I would, but it's okay. I feel like this has been me going through the stages of grief with this whole situation, so thank you for reading.
TL:DR: I chased after a girl for 6 years and never was actually in a relationship with her. I still have a hard time moving on. What should I do?

Currently trying to make a big move to “start anew” and it’s made me reflect on where I am currently in life. I don’t feel like there’s anything about myself that I’m proud of, or accomplishments/goals that I feel motivated to pursue.
A couple years back I could say I was proud of my academic achievements. I was a straight-A, honors roll student who skipped a grade and was involved in lots of extracurriculars and community services. But my grades started to slip during my last years of high school where I was struggling with depression, my eating disorder, and a physically abusive home environment. Fast forward to my sophomore year of college, and I ended up dropping out of school. I went back to school after a year (mainly due to guilt and embarrassment of being a “drop out”), but I can only take classes part time because I have to work full time to support myself. I don’t receive any financial support and live independently of my parents. Because of this, it’s probably going to take me 6 years just to finish my bachelor’s degree, and who knows how long if I want to do postgraduate studies. (It’s a biology degree, so I feel like I kind of have to because I’ve been told many, many times that it’s useless on its own.)
I don’t even really have a passion for what I’m studying, but I feel like I’ve committed too much time and money to this degree to change it now. And to be entirely honest, there isn’t really anything that I’m passionate about. I no longer get to engage with any of my hobbies because I’m constantly busy studying, working, or trying to fix up the piece of shit that I inhabit to make it actually liveable. (Hooray not always having access to water.) I no longer really enjoy doing anything or look forward to doing things “for fun,” and it makes me feel like I don’t have an identity anymore. I used to draw/paint constantly and play video games, but I’ve lost interest in those things since I no longer have time for them. It’s just work, study, work, study. And that’s all I’ve become.
Speaking of work, I absolutely loathe my job. I work “back office,” at a medical clinic, which means I do everything that other people don’t want to do. Everything from getting screamed at over the phone because a frequent flier can’t get anymore hydros after failing their drug test to cleaning up leaks from urostomy bags without proper PPE. I understand these things need to be done, but I get paid minimum wage (even less once the benefits are subtracted from my paycheck), and none of these things were in the job description when I applied. I’m polite, respectful, hardworking, and I come to work on time every day. I never call out, and I only take PTO for emergencies. But none of that matters. I was just supposed to be a “check out” person at the front desk. I’m very low on the workplace totem pole due to my non-licensed position, and so I’m constantly picked on for my appearance and awkward mannerisms, shit on for not being able to do the work of four people by myself, and treated like a dumb child. (And I’m not even the youngest person working there!) The office environment is generally just very catty, it makes me feel like I’m back in middle school and am being picked on as the “weird kid” by a squad of popular tweens. I can’t wait to quit.
I’ve been in a relationship for around 1.5 years, and I’m starting to wonder if it’s me being anxious and overthinking it, but some days I wonder if he’s fallen out of love with me because of how boring my life has become. I never have anything to talk about besides work or school and even those have become stagnant. I’ve gained 20 pounds since we started dating, (which is realistically a good thing because I only weighed 89 before) but I still sometimes feel chunky and gross looking with all the stretch marks. Not to mention the stress from work and school had made me develop pretty bad acne. He was really kind and loving when we first started dating, constantly calling me beautiful and saying how he wanted to grow old together. But now it feels like I only ever get a compliment if I give him one first, and he only ever calls me “cute.” Not beautiful, not sexy, just “cute.” I constantly tell him how handsome I think he is, I compliment his specific attributes that I really like, I tell him how good he looks when he dresses up and how funny/sweet he is, but I don’t really get any of that back. Instead, he constantly makes “playful” mean jokes and when I ask him to stop he’ll say he’s just joking but then go right back to it an day later. I’m wondering if he’s also just burnt out from his somewhat recent nightshift job at a production plant and is just perpetually in a bad mood because of it and taking it out on me.
I really want to talk to him about this, but I’m a bad people pleaser and fear standing up for myself due to my abusive upbringing. And I feel pathetic asking him to compliment me and be nice to me more, it feels like I’m forcing him to pretend he’s attracted to me. I also feel like I contribute a lot more than him: I paid for everything back when he was unemployed for 6 months and lived with me. (Currently it’s 50-50 for bills.) I do all of the cooking, cleaning, laundry, dishes, home repairs, and housework. I work a second job to meet ends. I don’t like having to do everything but he grew up in a hoarding home and was genuinely never really taught how to keep a house from becoming disgusting. And I just really don’t have the time or energy to sit him down and try to explain everything to him, considering the fact I started learning this stuff when I was a child and am still figuring it out to this day. I’m also having to do all the work for finding an apartment 1500 miles away because (surprise surprise!) his dirt poor, hoarding single mother never taught him any financial skills. But again, I’ve never really sat him down and had a serious talk about this. I see a future with him and I want us to try and fix things, I just don’t know how to communicate that. (I never really learned healthy communication due to my home life and I usually blow up or start bawling whenever I am having a difficult conversation.) He says I make him so happy and that I’m the only woman in the world for him, and I truly do love him and want the both of us to be happy together. He’s always there to listen when I need to vent about work and just being held in his arms makes me feel better. I want to fix these minor problems, because he’s honestly the only thing that makes me happy anymore and the only thing I’m currently looking forward to is leaving this dead end town with him and starting a better life.
I guess I’m mainly just looking for reassurance that my life will get better someday, and I won’t spend the rest of my life as a robot going through the motions to keep a roof over my head.