So I (18F) and the potential crush (19F) met because we are both a fan of a singer who goes live on tiktok fairly regularly so we are both in the chat a lot. The profile picture is of her and she posts on tiktok and she is STUNNING! She is also funny and I knew i wanted to be friends with her. I ended up getting happy whenever she was in the chat and so I ended up dming her for her ig. So now we follow each other and we talk almost every day and we joke like we’ve known each other for ages yet it’s only been 2 weeks.
She is bi and I am bi however I’ve never had a wlw crush before and i am struggling to determine whether it’s my adhd fixating on this new friendship with someone who just happens to be attractive or whether it’s a crush. If this was an attractive male then this would definitely be a crush but for some reason I’m questioning it just because they are a girl.
This could be a Venn diagram type situation which doesn’t help anything. I know I should just wait longer as it only has been 2 weeks but I hate not knowing how to feel, especially if this is my first wlw crush. Reasons it may be a crush- I smile constantly whenever I see she has messaged me, I look forward to talking to her, I find her attractive, funny and we have things in common, I think about her some times out of nowhere, I want to tell my friends about her. But you see these things can also be perceived as an exciting new friendship so I’m torn
Any tips on how to determine whether I like her as a new friend or as a crush would be greatly appreciated, this is new territory for me and I don’t know how to feel

Hey! So fortune recently befell and a gift pass fell in my lap. I have been to many festivals and raves, but I'm running severely by the seat of my pants to get my shit together and prepare.

• I know food is available inside the festival, but what kinds of food is in the general store? I'll be spending a few days in PDX before heading up, and space will be kind of a premium. Assuming they sell ice there, as well.
• I'm planning on sleeping in my vehicle, but what else would be Really Handy to Have for coming back to my spot during the day to chill out? I *may* bring a tent, but most likely will just bring a sun/wind shelter and secure it down as best as I can.
• If I bring pre-mixed cocktails in plastic bottles is anyone going to give a shit? I'm assuming that 99% of that rule is because "glass". I am sure this could be the dumbest question I have.
• I'm staying in GA - does anyone bring in decks and do any fun afterparty stuff? I could bring mine in if it's something people do.
• I'm a bit of a tiki drink nerd and if I erected a makeshift free drink tiki bar do you think anyone would give me any static about it?
• Are the showers open 24/7, and what are the lines typically like?
• Is there a meetup for solo campers to shoot the shit?
• Similarly, I'm sure the venn diagram overlap between video games and EDM Festivals is high - in the past have there been any game meetups for switch/etc?

Thanks! So excite.

I can't believe how stupid I am. I calculated my marks and it's adding up to about 195. If the grade boundaries go lower to 200-198 then I'll miss a 9 by 3-5 marks 😭 it's my fault for making the most stupid of errors on paper 1 and 2. If I had literally drawn the probability tree on paper 2 and got the venn diagram 2 marks on paper 1 and the simple 1 mark equation of a straight line one then I'd get a 9😭

Preamble: I mentioned I use Anki for learning Guitar in this thread, and got lots of replies asking to share my routine. I figured I'd make a post to spark some more diskussion on the topic.
First of all, please don't think of this as a definitive tutorial. I'll just share my routine, while being aware it is probably not optimized. I'm always open to improvement suggestions, especially as I'm not that deep into the mechanics of Anki.
That being said, I'm convinced practicing Guitar with Anki has made it possible for me to reach a level that I wouldn't have been able to with conventional practice, at least not at that efficiency and relatively low-effort.
Why use Anki to learn an instrument?: I think the most difficult part in learning an instrument is not a lack of talent or skill, but to actually practice. In fact, I think everyone can learn every instrument, and you don't need any skill at the beginning. Where it gets difficult is setting up and maintaining an effective practice routine. Without a teacher who sets up a practice routine for you, it's easy to get lost. You end up noodling around, play a song here and there, but ultimately you'll keep forgetting what you learned, because its incredibly hard to keep track of everything you already learned, and practice it before you loose that skill. That's demotivating, and keeps you feeling like you're going nowhere, leading to a circle of picking up the instrument for a few months, quitting, picking it up again and so on.
Another thing is how difficult and time consuming it is to set up a traditional practice routine. It shouldn't be too hard because that'll be demotivating, and it shouldn't be too easy, or it'll get boring and you wont learn anything new. This means you have to extensively manage your practice routine, and periodically reevaluate and rework it, which is an exhausting and time consuming process. Time that could've been better spend practicing or learning something new.
That's where Anki comes into play. It enables you to just sit down and practice effectively, without worrying about what to do. You can work at your own pace, but the algorithm makes sure you will get better over time. I find this extremely motivating, just to know if I sit down and do my cards, I'll keep getting better and better.
Creating Cards: Your cards have to come from somewhere. In my opinion, it's best to write your own cards, because you can determine which areas you want to practice, and which ones aren't that important to you. Furthermore, everyone learns differently, especially when it comes to learning an instrument.
But I would advice to have a structured course from where you create your cards, instead of random YouTube videos (although I use these complimentary when I feel like I want to dive deeper into a particular topic). A structured course will ensure you'll gradually build up your skills, instead of trying to learn a piece thats way above your skill level, and getting frustrated.
For guitar, I use the courses by Justin Sandercoe on his website (big shoutout for his amazing work!). They're completely free of cost, well structured, and range from beginner to advanced, which will ensure you'll never run out of new things to learn. I recommend the website over YouTube, because it lets you keep track of your progress and provides additional information and resources written out under each lesson.
I just go through the lessons, and create cards from them as I see fit. It could be as easy as "Play the A Chord 20 times with the chord perfect practice detailed by Justin", and then the chord diagram on the backside. Or it could be playing a whole song, it's really up to you, and depends a bit on skill level.
Scheduling: For scheduling I use my default settings (which are from Anking I believe) with just a few tweaks (suggestions welcome).
Learning steps are 1h 1d, with a graduating interval of 3 and easy of 4. Relearning steps are 10m 1d (probably gonna change that to 1h 1d too), with a minimum interval of 1.
Differences to learning pure facts: Learning an instrument is different from learning merely intellectual knowledge. When you're learning facts, its entirely possible you'll memorize a card on first sight. That rarely happens while learning an instrument, and isn't even supposed to happen. When learning an instrument, you want to build muscle memory through repetition. This is something to be aware of, as it might differ from the way one would use Anki normally.
It's entirely normal for some of my cards to be kept in the "learning" phase for extended periods of time, sometimes even months. I just keep them in there by pressing "again". Only if I'm confident with the specific technique or song on the card I press "good" and let the spaced repetition take over. Per se, that is just how Anki is supposed to work I guess, but it sure feels strange at first.
In my experience, for learning an instrument it's best to see a card only once per day, or maybe twice if you're very motivated. Any further repetitions won't build that muscle memory faster, as it primarily develops while you sleep. So I just keep giving my brain a little stimulus every day, and let it work it's magic at night.
It's a really cool feeling to practice something hard like a barre chord just for a very short time every day, and without you having to do anything else you just get better! At first it just feels impossible, but with time it becomes second nature.
Limitations I've encountered: When learning an instrument, there are some drills you want to do regularly over an extended period of time. The method mentioned above works great for that, because it keeps the card in the learning phase, so it doesn't accumulate ease and you can press "again" as often as you want. However, for some things it would be nice to schedule cards at specific intervals, for example "Do some transcribing every sunday". I havent found a workaround for that, but these cases are very rare and can easily be scheduled via my conventional calendar.
Also, sometimes it would be nice to have dependend cards. E.g., "When finished with this exercise, suspend this card and unsuspend the card with the same exercise but in a harder version". There are quite a few occasions where this would come in handy, but I just work my way around it by editing the card, and adding in the harder exercise this way (for example raise the BPM from 40 to 80).
That post got much longer than expected, however these are my thoughts and experiences about learning guitar with Anki. In summary, it works really well for that use case, and it's definitely something I don't want to miss! Let me know if you've found this helpful, and happy learning! 🎶

Imagine this: I’m standing in my company’s conference room, surrounded by a whiteboard full of seemingly random numbers and diagrams, trying to explain these hieroglyphics to a group of important stakeholders. Cold sweats and hands shaking. If I couldn’t convince them today, then it was a dead-end for the project I was leading.
But let me rewind a bit. I was handed this project on a platter of failure - no one before me had been able to crack it. It was like a 1000-piece puzzle where all the pieces looked the same, and the picture on the box was missing. I was scared, definitely, but something in me saw it as an opportunity rather than a problem.
I started by breaking down the problem into smaller, manageable ones. Then, I decided to deploy the 'First Principles Thinking', a mental model used by none other than Elon Musk himself. It’s a mode of inquiry that relentlessly pursues the foundations of a problem. This allowed me to see things more clearly and build up piece-by-piece, ultimately forming a comprehensive solution.
Fast forward again to that daunting conference room. I had a plan and knew my stuff. The stakeholders were impressed, the project was a success, and the self-confidence I gained was priceless. But it was more than just being successful in that project. It was about successfully wrestling a problem, proving that I could face a difficult situation head-on, and come out on top.
Solving problems, especially tough ones, is like hitting the gym for your confidence muscles. The more you do it, the stronger you become. It's the kind of strength that comes from within, building not just your self-confidence, but also your character.
P.S. Just a side note, friends. I didn’t actually save a company from an impending doom, or lead a high-stakes project (yet!). But I guess that's the fun part of hypothetical stories, right? The reality is, mental models like the 'First Principles Thinking' can be advantageous in any aspect of our lives. So go ahead, tackle those puzzles and build that self-confidence! Cheers!

I live in an upper floor of a tall apartment, and at my ground level, there is a friendly bar where I spend almost every night with my laptop drinking beers and learning/practicing skills. In the last 2 years, sitting at this bar with my laptop I've gained full proficiency in SQL, Python, HTML/CSS, Git, and many others, and have leveraged that knowledge into a new great job.
I feel like I am addicted/dependent in such a way that it's almost impossible for me to sit at home sober and research, but once I've got a beer to my left, I can be productive for 3 hours. Weirdly, I'm also never interested in going to the bar just to drink, I need my laptop and learning there, so I'm at a point where there's a weird venn diagram that mostly encompasses drinking and studying, and I'm looking for a way to be interested in the studying without drinking.
I know I am consuming too much alcohol on a weekly basis and really want to cut back. Has anyone else run into a situation where 2 habits require one another?

Good marrow, bonelickers!
Early last month I announced the 19th Speedlang Challenge. I broke the mould with it a little bit by confining how the ambitious among you would actually put together your speedlangs rather than defining a number of requisite features. The bulk of this process had speedlangers root all their creative linguistic decisions in a small set of natlangs, and these natlangs specifically had to be native to areas representative of a chosen clade of organisms. To ensure the clade of organisms was well represented, I also asked for a number of lexical items and conceptual metaphors that had to be specifically inspired by the clade in some way, as well as some aspect of the phonology.
Like last time, I'll provide my thoughts about what I think makes each submission special and the features I particularly like. Afterwards, I'll quickly review what was inspired by the chosen clade, in case that has any bearing on what you kind readers might like to check out, and give out brownie points for any easter eggs I spot, whether intended or not.
Overall this has been a deeply creative round of submissions and I learned a lot, both things I set out to achieve when I thought up this particular challenge. I hope it was just as rewarding a challenge for everyone who submitted as it was for me getting to read up on each entry, and I hope it will be the same for anyone who reads up on them, too.
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Seba Bàsa by Miacomet

Gyps (griffon vultures); Chamic, Bengali, Santali & Mundari
With a name including the element Bàsa, I knew this had to have Indic flavours of one sort of another, and indeed it does! This conlang is largely Austronesian in origin with sound changes from Old Cham, but it has a lot of Bengali influence and is well situated in the Indian subcontinent, and I greatly appreciate the nod to Parsi funerary traditions as an inspiring reason for choosing Gyps. Amusingly, this conlang has many features that fit right into the inspiration for the last speedlang challenge, which I find just delightful, with some split-S marking, dative enclitics, and grammaticalised constructions for simultaneous and sequential events, and light pronouns. Therebeside, the historical clipping, CVK syllable structure, postpositional pronouns, and aspectual auxiliaries speak to sensibilities in my own conlanging, and the dissimilation processes in some of the affixes are a nice touch, too. I'm also a big of fan just how the split-S system is implicated in some verbal polysemy, and I really like how the few voices seem kinda muddy but have clear use cases. What really sets this conlang apart, though, is the consideration paid to the effect of prestige languages. Some phonemes are restricted to loanwords from the local prestige language, and one is even only confined to prestige language-educated speakers, which causes some allophony other speakers don't have. Loaning processes are detailed, too, and the number and classifier system also draws nice lines along the prestige axis with a total of 3 parallel number systems, spread out across both divisions of native vs. loaned classifiers, which themselves have specific semantic domains they each classify, and across divisions of prestige language education. The story at the end, too, is a real treat: it's a translation of Hindu vulture myth, perfect for this project.
Seba Bàsa's Gyps-inspired phonology includes the development of creaky voice from the loss of glottals, glottalised consonants, and final /s/ in Old Cham to recall vulture cries. It's inspired lexicon includes some fun polysemy of vulture behaviours like circling = waiting or sheepling = looking for something desirable. I'm also a big fan of kite (the bird) = messy eater. It's inspired conceptual metaphors include dividing the beginning, middle, and end of a process into eating skin, meat, and bones, respectively, and equating head height/position with one's health or comfortableness as inspired by how vultures droop their heads when ill.
We're starting off string with double brownie points for meeting both the space epic easter egg by calquing the Ewokese word for 'outsider' and the empress easter egg by referring to Buddha's Birthday!
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Kogëdek by u/Porpoise_God

Setonix & Macropodidae more generally (quokkas + kangaroos & wallabies); Noongar, Pitjantjatjara, Wajarri, Guugu Yimithirr, Miriwoong, Guniyandi, Dyirbal, Mbabaram
Aside from the one splant you'll soon see, I think this entry gets the prize for the most unique chosen clade by being A) not a bird, and B) not an ungulate. As great as birds are, quokkas are pretty amazing, too. I'm not too familiar with Pama-Nyungan languages but this did a good job of affecting some of the features I've come to know them for, including but not limited to the phonological natural classes of peripheral vs. coronal, coverb constructions, and the word for 'dog' bearing a striking similarity to English. Split-ergativity features across the noun-pronoun axis, and there's a unique set of duals that specifically refer to sibling, parent-child, or spousal pairs of individuals that I might have to steal for myself. The case marking includes a lative case I haven't seen before, and implicates the comitative in a neat way in comparative constructions. I also appreciate the what-looks-to-be resumptive subject pronominal proclitics; very speedlang 18, and a great example of a fossilised mistake, which I always love to see! The verbs also feature multiple conjugations, and the imperative is implicated for its tenselessness in certain subclause constructions, which has a certain type of quirkiness I'd expect out of some past speedlang challenges.
Kogëdek's Setonix-inspired phonology included a /ç/ in the proto-lang, which bears some resemblance to quokka calls, although it was lost to /s/ and /x/ in the modern language. The inspired lexical entries include roots for different kinds of macropods and styles of jumping, and conflates jumping with breathing. Some of the idioms include "pouch-baby" for pejorative "mama's-boy" and using kangaroo badassery as a metaphor for all sorts of less than ideal situations.
Brownie points for a particularly insidious word-form for 'father'.
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Yatakang by Lichen

Bubalus (water buffaloes); Hindi-Urdu, Thai, Vietnamese, Khmer, Burmese, Malay
This one's a little rough around the edges, but it's a good foundation for a nice mix of both SEA features, like the isolating morphosyntax, and unique features, like the class agreement system. It's also got clicks limited to avoidance speech! Diachronics from a proto-lang where considered, and I really like how the typologies of the inspo langs were used as targets for the sound changes. I'll have to keep this workflow in mind! Some of the sound changes include expanding the number of stop contrasts to match the average number of contrasts, or eroding the number of vowels to match that of Malay. Phonotactics were carefully considered with full structures for both mono- and disyllables as well as bare roots vs. compound stems. Grammatically, morphology is mostly limited to a host of different reduplication patterns, which in itself is something I'd really like to see more of! Where this really shines, though, is with its agreement system: nouns are sorted into a 3x2 matrix of 6 classes, portmanteau agreement particles mark for the class of both the subject and the object, the system implicates the social hierarchies common to many SEA languages, and the position of the particle marks modality. Incredibly inspired to pack all that into a set of maybe 36 particles, if you ask me, never mind how it helps to disambiguate fluid word class and how it might be implicated in future plans for Indonesian object-oriented verbs. I'm also a fan of how the temporal question verb patterns like an agreement particle to mark for tense by co-opting the modality marking. We also get some prosody-syntax interfacing with different pitch contours at clause boundaries operating as different sorts of conjunctions.
Yatakang's Bubalus-inspired phonology includes a combination of creaky voice and syllabic nasals to affect a mooing phonaesthetic. The lexical entries exhibit some nice semantic drift from water buffalo activities and behaviours towards more human behaviours, and the planned phrase of hat-hand stroke fur for "suddenly realise a problem, and then pretend there isn't one" just feels exactly like an observation a water buffalo would make observing its human, which I really like. The inspired metaphors are also simple and straightforward, likening roundedness to goodness or knowledge to food, which makes for some brilliantly idiomatic language like "I ate the book" to mean "I read and understood the contents of the book."
Extra brownie points for including both halves of the space epic easter egg to placate both sides of nerddom; the term 'tax-man' is everything it ought to be.
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Kurikiri by Jjommoma

Casuariiformes (cassowaries and emus); Dhuwal, Motu, Tok Pisin
Compared to most other entries, this one's very short and sweet with some Australian sounds and some head-final Papuan grammar (however loose a description that is). That being said, Kurikiri is very inventive in being partially signed with much of its grammatical marking encoded by actions done with the foot, including number, case, definiteness, and some basic TAM.
Aside from the cassowary foot action grammar markers, as well as some lexical entries there-related, Kurikiri also equates flightedness to being ostentatious, disdaining flighted birds out of envy, which I think is a fun thought process for these terrestrially confined birds. There's also some neat phonosemantics in the taboo word for predator being especially difficult to pronounce.
This wasn't the intent, but I'm giving some space epic brownie points for the foot grammar if for nothing else than that it reminds me of Paul Frommer's Thark from John Carter and its telepathic grammatical and verbal lexical expression.
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Whaynisiday by u/Fimii

Spheniscidae (penguins); Māori, Xhosa, Quechua
What do you do when the entire population of penguins achieves human-like levels of intelligence after some gene splicing and they start calling for a language to call their own? Why, you do exactly what the prompt of this challenge asks for and combine the languages native to the homeland of the blue, african, and humboldt penguins! The write up for this conlang does a great job of pointing out what features are from which language exactly, and plays a fun balancing game between some of the phonological and grammatical extremes in its sourcelangs. In so doing it has a few quirks that really tickle the intersection of my linguist and conlanger venn diagram, specifically the presence of what I'd have to interpret as onset morae, as well as semantic noun class marked solely through agreement (which is very Varamm, so I'm not at all biased towards it). There's a handful of fun, rare cases, and the simulative mood fits right into the inspirations for the last challenge to create some vaguely Tupian simultaneous actions. There's a bunch more little grammatical bits that are fun, but impressionistically I appreciate how the more isolating grammar of Māori was incorporated into the synthetic common ground of the other 2 sourcelangs.
Whaynisiday's Spheniscidae-inspired phonology includes a couple syringeal sounds to complement the otherwise human capable inventory. The highlighted lexical entries pay special attention to how penguins locomote with basic stems for different kinds of movement options both on land and in the water, as well as a split in breathing for whether its on land at rest or in the water being active. The conceptual metaphors include a great model of time with the past on land and the future in the inky depths, and the very adorable notion that safety = community, and so naturally a farewell would be a wish of friendship.
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Poro by The Inky Baroness

Rangifer tarandus subsp. (domestic reindeers); Proto-Samic, Komi-Zyrian, Tundra Nenets, Chukchi
Where do I even begin with this one? I was excited to read this one when I first received it, but it was even better than I could have hoped when I got round to reading it! Although, not for any linguistic reasons: the first half of the doc reminds me of Gillian Teft's Anthro-Vision as an anthropological account of reindeers written by a fictitious Finnish researcher rather than any sort of sketched reference grammar, which I love dearly. The latter half, meanwhile, goes into great detail about what went into the first half, including all sorts of motivations or reasons for the decisions made. Some diachrony is detailed, as well as the effects of language contact rooted in actual historical events relevant to the chosen sourcelangs, which is just great to see. I loved the ways in which each of the different sourcelangs were all represented in the final product with it being Samic in origin but including some phonological and grammatical borrowings from Komi and Nenets like the lack of consonant gradation, the verb-final syntax, some vowel changes, and a fantastic predestinative affix that interacts with the conceptualisation of time in some neat ways. All the while, care was taken to do a wealth of research at every step in the process with a fairly extensive bibliography. Hoof clicks all around for this one!
Poro's Rangifer-inspired phonology includes a deer bellow as some sort of epiglottal obstruent that actually patterns with the Nenets glottal stop, as well as some other approximated reindeer vocalisations including what I presume to be grunts or chuffs, both oral and nasal. Care was also taken to think about what a fully reindeerised descendant of Proto-Samic would look like as accords with the included etiological myth for reindeers and reindeer husbandry, but this was well beyond the scope of a speedlang. The lexical entries include all sorts of terms for reindeer physiology, including but not limited to antler velvet, different types of vocalisations, and hoof clicks. These lexical entries feature in some wonderful idioms using antlers to describe social hierarchy, useful- or uselessness, and glibness or malicious intent, as well as an equivalent to "when pigs fly": "to catch a bird between one's hooves."
Extra brownie points both for the nominal hierarchical exaltation of mothers baked into reindeer culture and inclusion of an anti-imperialist message in promoting the research of the under-represented and often stigmatised language and culture of traditionally reindeer herding peoples. Also do keep an eye out for Dr. Dolittle easter eggs: Inky will reward you handsomely if you can spot one!
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Kiwi by NerpNerp

Apteryx & Novaeratitae more broadly (kiwis + cassowaries & emus); English, Māori, Traditional Tiwi, Miriwoong, Bardi
Given the number of bird entries with Indo-Pacific flavours, I'm almost half surprised this was the only kiwi entry: they're such good birbs! As might be expected, this conlang endeared itself to me just as its namesake does. The phonology has all sorts of trills and rhotics, and limits itself to high vowels; it's also got some neat phrase level prosody to mark different sorts of modal information and focus, even including an intrusive glottal stop at the sentence level. Noun incorporation is varied and detailed, and can create some polysynthetic constructions as a consequence of just how exactly the rest of the otherwise fairly analytic morphosyntax works. I'm a particular fan of the deictic categories including 7 different degrees of deixis characterising both distance and motion, and I'm also a fan of of the grammaticalised time of day. Heximal numbers and coverb constructions also feature. There's even a kiwi-capable featural alphabet that each of the examples show off!
Kiwi's Apteryx-inspired phonology includes the trills and high vowels being inspired by kiwi calls and I imagine a little of their anatomy with those long, thin bills. The inspired lexemes include specific types of smells humans can't detect at the expense of any colour terms, reflecting kiwis nocturnal, smell-based lifestyles. The idioms for "a long time ago" or "once upon a time" is absolutely delightful--"when kiwis flew"--and the grammaticalised time of day subdivides the night but not the day, as might be expected from a nocturnal beastie.
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Asamiin by Christian Evans

Asamina (pawpaws); Ottawa, Unami, Tuscarora, Mikasuki, Chitimacha, Timucua
The speech that nourishes! And a splant, too, no less; I was hoping for at least one of these! This one's made all the better by delving into some Eastern North American languages and I really like the flavours this lends itself to. Syncope is abound with all sorts of morphological obfuscation through detailed phonological processes, and animacy plays a key role in the verb complex. Care was also taken to find a phonological common ground between all the sourcelangs, which made for a really interesting set of vowels with a basic 6 vowel inventory, but with 2 nasal vowels that can surface as vocalic allophones to the nasal consonants. The grammar is fairly straightforward but has a few quirks that I really appreciate, including but not limited to the fluid O placement to make for some syntactic focusing strategies I so adore and the optional, enclitic case marking narrowed by various postpositions used as another, separate means of focus. Overall just really well laid out and the formatting is really cute, something I've now come to expect after Yumpịku last time.
Asamiin's Asamina-inspired phonology includes a pharyngeal approximant to recall the really long taproot pawpaws grow, as well as regressive sibilant harmony to recall the mimicry the flowers employ to attract pollinators, both of which are some really inspired departures from the sourcelangs.
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Ekaangäq by Atyx

Haliaeetus pelagicus (Steller's sea eagle); Chukchi, Alyutor, Koryak, Itelmen, Ainu, Nivkh, Evenki, Uilta
A bird that escapes any Indo-Pacific flavours? Well I'll be! Instead of South Pacific this one gives all sorts of North Pacific energy being spoken by a population of eaglefolk native to the Sea of Okhotsk and representative of the languages spoken along its coasts. The Ainu flavours are especially strong with both an Ainu-based consonant inventory and a kana orthography, among others. The vowels also show some interesting lopsidedness with 2 creaky vowels complementing an otherwise fairly straightforward 6 vowel system that feature in a front-back vowel harmony system, though I'm a real fan of the sandhi rules at word boundaries that cause all sorts of fun consonant alternations. Word stress is also detailed and has funky placement rules at odds with my understanding of theoretical prosodic processes! Grammatically there's a few quirks that really stand out to me and tickle my curiosity: a dual distinction on the nouns but not in the pronouns, and polypersonal agreement in a transitive alignment system, the only departure from direct, accusative, and/or ergative alignment in this round of submissions. I also appreciate some of the syncretism in the pronouns!
Ekkangäq's Haliaeetus-inspired phonology includes entirely unrounded vowels and a lack of any labial consonants to reflect the speakers have beaks, as well as the 2 creaky vowels as rooted in their physiology, a common theme for this challenge. The lexicon includes some distinctions between diving and eating as it applies to different kinds of prey. The conceptual metaphor, though, I think is really great equating the passage of time with ice: an iceberg calving off a glacier is birth, melting is ageing, and melting all away is dying. Great stuff!
I think I actually have to give negative brownie points for this one: as much as I appreciate 3 separate orthographies (Kana, Cyrillic, Latin) for some historicity, they are all at odds with the anti-imperialism the brownie criterion requires, and there's no girl power to balance it out.
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Taqồpaq by accruenewblue

Gallus (jungefowl); Hindi-Urdu, Burmese, Thai, Punjabi, Tamil, Indonesian
I'm a little surprised this is, I think, the only truly tonal submission despite all the SEA birds, and it's less synthetic than most in this round of submissions. In either case, this one does a great job of illustrating some tonogenesis and some recent and still very transparent synthetic developments from a formerly isolating language. The tones are simple registers, but they interact with morae in some neat rightwards reassigning sandhi patterns, and they complement a system of 12 vowels in a 3x2x2 matrix of height, frontedness, and roundedness. There's even some vocalic nasal allophones (which is twice now in this round of submissions), and labial consonant-vowel harmony to boot! Grammatically I greatly appreciate all the call-outs for similarities to natural languages, and I wanna shout-out the use of a positive tag question instead of negative. The numbers have this funky sexagesimal base with an octal sub-base and remnants of an old decimal sub-base, which recalls some of the duodecimal remnants in the otherwise decimal system of many European languages.
Taqồpaq's Gallus-inspired phonology includes the tonal system being described as recalling a rooster's crow. The lexicon includes roots for all things chicken, including using the word for 'wattle' as a classifier for hanging things, which is so delightfully what I wanted out of this challenge. The more idiomatic language makes use of chicken behaviours as descriptors: dust baths are metaphors for something useful but not everyone's cup of tea, and continuing to brood after the chicks have hatched is a metaphor for doing a good thing so long it has negative consequences.
Extra brownie points for exalting queen Trưng, first queen of Vietnam, and a nationalist hero who fought against Chinese imperialism. Double whammy right there!
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Ngālin by u/borago_officinalis

Aptenodytes forsteri (emperor penguins); Awabakal, Māori, Norwegian
We already had a penguin splang but this one's a nice twist by focusing on the territorial claims of Antarctica rather than the ranges of more temperate inclined penguins where there are actually native languages. This does a great job of shirking the indigenous implication in the language selection step of the challenge (although I'm very glad to see no English or Spanish), so there's a really neat mix of isolating Māori particles with a fusional Germanic verbal system, and I was able to easily pick up on both reading through the doc. The verb system actually pleases me greatly with a strong/weak contrast and a V2 word order wherein the strong verbs mark tense through stem change and the weak verbs with a tense auxiliary, all whilst maintaining a very Polynesian aesthetic despite the very Germanic number of vowels. The Māori possessive system is also really fun, I think. I can't speak to the Awabakal influences, but I was able to pick up on the one, tiny Mapudungan influence of tone tag particles before it was even explicitly mentioned! Not sure where the negation system came from, but it implicates the weak verbs in a way I so adore. Really sweet, despite the fun grim facts about emperor penguin hatchlings, and I found this one just darling. The myth at the end about how penguins lost their ability to fly is also real treat and is a perfect fit for the project.
Ngālin doesn't have any A. forsteri-inspired phonology, but it makes up for it with the inspired lexicon and idiomatic language. The emperor penguin breeding cycle is detailed with translations for all the important terms along the way, including but not limited to the ritual of transferring egg from mother to father and "motherless" to refer to a newborn, whose mother hasn't yet returned from the sea. There's some great, everyday idioms elided down from full phrases for greeting and consoling another penguin being "which way?" and "next year", and conceptualising a long distance as specifically the distance from colony to see is a nice touch. I also appreciate how the relationship between creche-mates is more important than that between (half-)siblings.
I have to give queen exaltation brownie points purely for the one illustrative example of āmā o pipa "hatchling's mum" grammatically indicating the senior authority of an empress penguin.
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Honourable Mention

I've been kept somewhat apprised of a Urile (North Pacific cormorants) splang by u/PastTheStarryVoids. It's still very much in the works, but it sounds funky with both some polysynthetic flavours, no doubt inspired by some PNW languages, I imagine, and some formorant (cormorant formant) analysis! Keep an eye out for it, I'm sure it'll grace the sub in due time!
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And that's everything I've seen in the time I put together this showcase. I know there were a few among you all who felt inspired but couldn't put anything together during the course of this challenge. I remember mention of a banana and a tree kangaroo splang on the announcement post. If anyone ever uses the challenge to inspire a future project of theirs, please keep me apprised! I'd be interested in seeing them if for nothing else than to see some more projects outside of South Asian and Oceanian birds, as great as those birbs are. I can't believe I didn't see a single monotreme or non-ungulate eutherian, and that there weren't any non-avian reptiles or anything fully aquatic! And no fossil clades, too, for that matter! I'm positive there are the makings of some really funky splangs if the relevant modern continental and climactic boundaries didn't yet exist.
In any case, I hope all parties involved had a great deal of fun through the course of this challenge! I know I did! Until next marrow, bonelickers!

Hello hello! I’ve been doing Qigong on and off, over the last few months and I’ve really enjoyed doing the exercises and seeing such quick and profound results in my vitality and wellbeing, it’s amazing!
I used to do Kriya Yoga for a number of years, but I hated how strenuous it was on my body to stretch, doing certain Asanas and felt like I was at the gym some times working out! And I would feel more depleted in energy overall, but knew that my body was working on core muscles, than feeling energised.
Anyway, I got into Qigong and have picked up a few books one of been ‘The Way Of Qigong’ By Kenneth Cohen. I find it really insightful, but the diagrams seem to be few and far between. I was expecting it to be more visual, in regard to poses and what not. I know that it does, but seems to be lacking actual movement/procedures, just my take. Overall good book though.
So as being more practical and visual learning and I’ve being doing this over the last month and have enjoyed the exercises shown, really good introduction for beginners. But now I’m wanting something more in depth and has maybe more exercises/poses to work with. Just to add a bit more experience with working with Chi and Qigong overall.
I would greatly appreciate any feedback and if any of you guys here could recommend any YouTube Classes/Channels that are similar to the one I have used, that have more in depth and practical exercises to work with on a daily basis, that’d be great! Thanks guys!

[ETA TL;DR: My LT boyfriend consistently placed me in a challenging, pressurized situation while trying to do the work of discussing/considering ENM. Post title is tongue in cheek because I feel like I was set up to fail, but he doesn’t see that his actions aren’t in line with the ethos of the community. I don’t feel appreciated for my efforts or honored by his choices. Although he’s the one who wanted it, I now feel like I understand the tenets of this lifestyle far better than he does.]
My (F) domestic partner (M) of 5 years discovered/decided he was poly and wanted us to try Ethical Non-Monogamy. This was a huge surprise to me and not something I was seeking but I tried to be open-minded about it and take the time to research and discuss together because I respect his personal life journey and we had a really strong relationship with great communication. We tried a couple therapy sessions to talk through everything but the therapist wasn’t the right fit so we went back to talking and reading on our own. While in this process of discussion and fully existing within the agreement of a monogamous relationship still, I noticed him hiding his phone from me one night and upon kindly asking why, he responded truthfully and I discovered that a young beautiful colleague friend of his had been sending him pictures throughout the year (including a thong bikini ass shot) and he had been flirting heavily back with encouragement, suggestive jokes, and sexy emoji reacts. I was obviously incredibly hurt, especially because of my openness and vulnerability (and absolute insecurity) in discussing ENM along with some other recent elements to be insecure about. Worst of all, mixed in with the flirting and even as a direct response to a suggestive joke, they had also talked about requesting their work trips together in their travel industry jobs, in which he goes around the world several times a month and stays in nice hotels with a group of people for several days at a time, sometimes including partying and exploration adventures together. Now, he had never mentioned the possibility to me before that he could make requests with other colleagues, nor that he had already been trying to do that with a friend for several months (an ex-girlfriend and then later a fuck buddy, prior to our relationship). But he hadn’t considered that it would bother me because as he tried to explain, making these requests with people (even ones you just met) is totally normal for them cause you’d rather travel with people you know and like, that they do it all the time, and nothing would have happened between him and the sexy young butt-flashing model, she was just a friend and they just have that kind of energy together. I only ever knew him as having a lot of integrity (even if he lacks forward-thinking consideration of his partner), so I decided to trust him and move forward with “lessons learned” and we tabled the topic of his hurtful texts which he maintained that he didn’t feel were wrong, just how he wanted to live his life being free to flirt. I expressed that I’m not comfortable with the idea of such extreme flirtation because it insinuates an actual possibility of a hookup, that I wouldn’t have expected that from him, and it hurt me to see during a time of insecurity between us, and we agreed to talk about it more in the future to try to get on the same page. I was left very insecure with eroded trust but I had no reason not to give him the benefit of the doubt and challenged myself to conquer my insecurities. So we signed up for couples therapy again with a new awesome therapist to better navigate these conversations since they had stalled and still needed addressing.
Skip ahead one month past my calm but rejected attempts to discuss the matter and come to an understanding together, and I find out about more texts from 2 separate new work colleagues he met, again discussing enjoying meeting each other on their (assigned) trips and wanting to make intentional requests together in the future. One of them was quite insistent over the following days and kept bugging him about his schedule after I had obviously gotten upset/surprised about discovering him making plans with other women again before having discussed it together yet, despite my gentle solution-seeking efforts. [In case you are wondering, all the new friends happen to be young and beautiful women so it plays right into my insecurity (even though I am also considered attractive by many, but I guess I am not quite as young or hardcore fit, more petite and curvy, not at all overweight, but he had recently made me aware that his physical attraction to me had faded, so it was still a raw spot). He also has many female friends and they are all very attractive, and he has had sexual relationships with all of them back before he met me. I was jealous when we first got together but made my peace with it as being both a more casual cultural attitude about sex and a sign of him being a good guy if they all wanted to stay friends. But suffice it to say that the Venn diagram of who he wants to date/fuck and who he wants to be friends with is almost just a circle.]. The subject of his actively building and fostering NEW friendships is tricky though because he is always able to fall back on the fallacy that while he wouldn’t cheat on me, monogamy is not his philosophy now anyway and he ultimately wants to be free to flirt, pursue attractions and interests, etc. Which I feel doesn’t take into proper account that he’s out there building friendships/cultivating attractions in advance of our journey towards common ground/agreements, and I feel he’s pressurizing what should be a neutral work/exploration environment for us. But ultimately, we reiterated that we are in the midst of an open-hearted process and the subject of new friends/work trip requests still needs discussion along with the overall ENM discussion, so he puts off the insistent girl for the time being.
He does then openly share with me that he’s still been trying to make requests with that good friend (former girlfriend and fuck buddy) all this time too, and I’m actually ok with this because I know they are just friends now and I do believe he wouldn’t cheat on me. Later I had even asked to come along with him on one trip (totally normal for us) but then he said that was the one they had finally gotten together after 5 months of trying, so I backed off because he wanted to spend quality time with her to catch up. It stung for a minute but I actually had no problem with it in the end and never protested, complained, or said any damn thing about it. They had their trip together and that was that.
Then fast forward another couple weeks, I’m leaving town for a bit and he’s heading off to another work trip and so I double-check that we are still on the same page about the trip requests subject since that’s not what we had been covering in therapy yet and no resolution had been attempted or reached. He reconfirms to me in the most plain, basic, language with no misunderstandings that no, he will not make any trip requests with new women colleague friends until we have properly discussed it and come to an understanding.
Well, you guessed it, jump ahead another couple weeks and that is once again out the window. Although none of the following information was ever volunteered to me, he thankfully does always tell me the truth when asked the exact right direct/specific questions. So here is what I have pieced together after my many questions and sleuthing:
He recently met a gorgeous young [engaged, mono] woman and had a unique and exciting group travel experience with her on the work trip. They stayed in touch afterward (because he reached out with photos and a romantic message about the “special” time the two of them had shared together amongst the group outing), so they have been texting long detailed messages to each other over the subsequent weeks without my knowledge. And again, talking about specific trips that they would request together. How much they were looking forward to this specific place they would try to get. Asking each other all kinds of life questions, sharing pictures of their days, and some light sexy flirting. Meanwhile I am totally in the dark that they are actively in touch and having all these convos (he stays up late to write the messages instead of coming to bed with me or writes them on his trips, during work time, etc.), and making these plans together. But it comes time for him to make his work requests for the month, so he asks me my schedule. I then directly ask him again, so are you making any trip requests with friends too (like maybe one guy friend he has, for instance)? Ah, yes, he says he is planning to make requests with 2 friends—the former girlfriend/fuck buddy friend AND separately, the new gorgeous young engaged friend that I now get filled in on (upon my surprise and questioning) about how much they’ve been in touch. That’s when it all comes out because obviously this is just completely disrespect at this point to do this to me again, in spite of our well-established and understood agreement that he finally even admits himself he overstepped. To put me under this pressure to basically test my jealousy yet again while we are trying to have open-hearted conversations about insecurity and ENM. He doesn’t understand that this keeps stalling our ENM conversations because it comes down to my trust in his ability to respect and hold up our agreements, a pinnacle of the ENM lifestyle. But he says he didn’t do anything wrong because he told me about it first before actually submitting the request. (Did he honestly think I would be like “Yeah, cool! Have fun!” Who knows.) But now I’m the bad guy because he had to tell her they couldn’t request together after planning it all out and he was embarrassed. In order to tell her this, he said he wanted to call and explain it to her on the phone while I wasn’t home, which I agreed to, grateful for the transparency and signal to her that he puts our relationship first. But I find out later that he talked to her on the phone for 2 hours that night, explaining why he has to back out of the plan for right now (telling her it’s because we are having issues so he has to wait until I’m more comfortable) and then talking about life and getting to know each other even better. He then writes her the next day thanking her again for her understanding and saying it made him want to get to know her even more. She shares that she understands because she has problems with her fiancé too and will be doing a lot of tough thinking in the coming days about life and what she wants. We have therapy the next day and he proceeds to nosedive into a sour place about us, clearly resentful that he had to give that up.
So my question to you wise folks is — is this how one should approach ethical non-monogamy? Is that how that works? Because he considers himself to be of high moral character and not wanting to hurt people, so the “ethical” element of polyamory was genuinely hugely important to him and highly appealing. He seems to think he hasn’t done anything wrong though so… I figure you guys would be the experts on the subject and I’ll let you decide for yourselves if I am overreacting and misunderstanding what open, caring, supportive ENM conversations and behavior should look like.
Thanks as always for sharing your words and wisdom. I have learned so much from all of you that has empowered me to advocate for myself and what I consider to be respectful and loving ways of treating your partner both in and out of a monogamous lifestyle. I admire you for the thoughtfulness, respect, consideration, and understanding of humanity (flaws and all) that you give to the people in your lives.
Oh, by the way, yes, I learned some of these details because I broke his trust yesterday in a moment of weakness and took an opportunity to look at his WhatsApp to confirm if I was really being so unreasonable, maybe it was truly purely innocent. I weirdly didn’t see anything from her in there so I looked at “Archived” and there it all was, deliberately hidden away. But with fresh, sweet and encouraging texts to each other from that day and the day before. And some nice jokes/tornado emojis and a twister gif about how turbulent his and my conversations were this week. (This from the person whose favorite qualities of mine are how rational I am, how self-aware, and how much of a growth mindset I have. We NEVER fight, we just have discourse. I do not hit below the belt, I do not weaponize things, I do not attack, I don’t say things I would want to take back. I am honest, open-hearted and truthful about my feelings. I try my best to be patient and understanding and to give space for alternate views. I treat him with love and care and respect. But I fucked up. I read this text thread between them, breaking his trust.)
So he broke up with me immediately.

7x All-NBA (3/3/1)
‘01 MVP (3x Top-5 voting, 7x Top-10)
11x All-Star (2x ASG MVP)
‘97 Rookie of the Year
1) Memories of Iverson have gotten so simplified so quickly, I’m afraid he’s little more than “an inefficient gunner who was fast and once stepped over Tyronn Lue” to many fans today. Iverson is difficult to summarize or explain with any amount of words, so I’ll start by listing some things he makes me think of: a) playing Ninja Gaiden as Sonic the Hedgehog, b) the intensity of a cornered wolverine on all-fight-no-flight mode, c) the unflinching persistence of Melville’s Bartleby, but at the opposite end of the kinetic energy spectrum, d) Iggy Pop’s early on-stage performances, e) the quick-twitch ballance of a squirrel, f) the numerous Tupac interviews that showed skeptical non-fans that his “thuggishness” belied a deep thoughtfulness, g) a kamikaze pilot, h) the unsettling gaze of a death row inmate on his final walk.
2) Iverson’s cultural significance was bigger and arguably more important than his on-court career. He didn’t “introduce” hip-hop culture and its aesthetic to the NBA, but he became the face of that part of the Venn diagram. AI stood out because of his cornrows, numerous tattoos, extra baggy wardrobe, flashy jewelry, and the “questionable shadiness” of some members of his entourage, plus the raw directness with which he spoke was not what the league higher-ups wanted from its most popular player. It didn’t help that his background was marked by four months in jail while in high school because of a high-profile bowling alley brawl, but any objective person can see in retrospect how racist and pointed the “investigation” into that event was.
Commissioner David Stern put a player dress code into place because of Iverson, and AI was an interesting litmus test of sorts for most of the top voices in the media or authority figures in the NBA (the vast majority of both groups being middle aged or older white guys) to exhibit how rigidly “old school” they really were. As a perpetual target–including by many referees–Iverson’s popularity rose even higher, and he became maybe the most fully embraced sports figure by black America since Muhammad Ali.
3) His desire to win cannot be questioned, as he seemed to be having an existential, life-or-death crisis every game. Iverson played through numerous awful injuries (he popularized the wearing of compression sleeves), and the grit and determination he demonstrated made his teammates try harder, a bigger accomplishment than he usually gets credit for. AI was listed at 6-ft-0 and 165 pounds–he was neither–yet he flew into the lane with reckless abandon, and his body paid the price. He was beloved by teammates and fans for this because his slight stature made him the ultimate underdog (plus for how league higher-ups seemed to despise him). The media got on Iverson for his lax practice habits, but he needed the rest because of his injuries and how hard he played in games; Bill Russell did the same thing, by the way.
The problem was that his desire to win appeared to manifest itself as him wanting to do it all. Iverson rarely trusted his teammates (Philly’s front office certainly didn’t do him any favors), so he saw the path to victory as going directly through himself. It’s like he was thinking, “I’m a great scorer, so I should score as much as possible. I’m a great ball thief, so I should go for every steal.” It was hard for Iverson to see past this mentality, similar to a football defensive end who goes all out to rush the QB every play no matter what the situation or team scheme, so AI’s style of play often didn’t align itself with the best path to team glory, even if he thought it did.
4) Iverson was drafted in 1996 by a horrid Sixers team that hadn't topped 26 wins since the Barkley trade in '92, and hadn't been to the playoffs since '91. The roster was BAAAAAD. They made it into the playoffs in 1999, and Philly was respectable for five straight seasons (‘99-03), finishing over .500 and reaching the playoffs each year, and then usually making noise in the postseason (twice beating a higher seed in Round 1, never losing to a lower seed, and they squeaked into the Finals as the East’s #1 seed in ‘01).
You can think what you want about his awful shooting efficiencies and his often surly connections with his team, but the fact that he made the Sixers as good as they were for those five years was a herculean accomplishment that no other wing of that era could have topped in the same setting (not Carter, not McGrady, not Kobe).
Philly’s front office overreached and overpaid for almost everyone who took the court with Iverson, and it was not a good set of teammates for him. Had he switched places with Kobe in the late-90s and got to spend his prime with a great center like Shaq, Iverson would have had at least those three rings LA won and possibly more because I find it more likely that he would have meshed well with Shaq.
5) As you likely already know, his primary strengths were absurd speed and athleticism (best in NBA history) and his prolific scoring ability (four scoring titles, career 27 ppg, 30 ppg from ‘00-06). Iverson’s incredible shiftiness mixed with his “I’m going to embarrass you” mindset and elite hesitation crossover made him a nightmare to defend 1-on-1, and he attracted so much attention flying into the lane that he was able to create opportunities for his teammates. Iverson hit more tough buckets in traffic than almost any player ever, especially at the ends of games when his confidence and aggression earned a bunch of clutch wins.
His inconsistent shooting was well known (career 42% FG, 31% 3FG), so he was more than capable of shooting his team out of contests as he’d angrily go into “I’ll outscore everyone” mode. AI was regularly top-5 in spg, but he was also regularly top-10 in topg, and it’s been said more than a few times that he often played out of control.
6) Iverson might be more associated with a single season (‘01) than any other star ever. He led the league in scoring (31.1 ppg), steals (2.5 spg), won MVP in a landslide over peak Shaq and Duncan, carried a not-Finals-worthy team to the best record in the East (56-26) and into the Finals, and once there he had his most iconic game (Game 1: unexpected Sixers win in OT in LA over the HEAVILY favored Lakers by racking up 48 pts and 5 steals, plus AI had multiple clutch plays including the Ty Lue step-over bucket in the final minute of OT). It's the season we think of when we think of Iverson.
7) There were persistent discussions by the fans, media, and front office about him being traded away from the Sixers due to some combination of bad fit, bad attitude, crazy lifestyle, and bad shooting efficiencies, especially after the team fell off a cliff following the '03 season (Iverson missed 34 games in '04 as the team went 33-49). He was finally traded to Denver during the ‘07 season, and he was thisclose to being traded to the Pistons in 2000 (a clause in Matt Geiger’s contract stopped the deal), right before his amazing ‘01 season.
8) The pairing of high scorers Iverson and Carmelo Anthony in Denver was a really big deal at the time, seen as a duo who each demanded double teams and would cripple opposing defenses. In an expected-by-many twist, their two best scoring seasons together (‘07 and ‘08) were not the team’s best seasons, and they never won a playoff series together.
9) As fun as it was for fans to watch Vince Carter's post-prime career as he graciously accepted supporting roles on multiple teams, Iverson's post-prime career was really hard to watch as he kept demanding a central role on multiple teams well after his athleticism was no longer next-level. Whether it was his last partial season in Denver, his time in Detroit, his three games in Memphis, his curtain call in Philly, or even his two months on a second-tier Turkish team, Iverson’s days after ‘08 were cringey and unfortunate.

Has anyone else observed a sort of "Venn diagram" overlap between chronic pain and hyperawareness/somatic OCD? I'm talking about the factors and causes common to both, as well as "exposure" treatments common to both.
With "pure O" hyperawareness/somatic OCD, you're acutely aware of some physical sensation and can't disengage from it. Your constant fear that the sensation will last forever limits your life and causes you great distress.
With chronic pain, you're also acutely aware of a physical sensation. In cases without nerve or tissue damage and few effective treatments (fibromyalgia, lower back pain, TMJ, headaches etc), your constant fear that the pain will last forever limits your life and causes you great distress.
But it seems possible that ONE sensation can cause both conditions in one person at the same time: You have a chronic pain, numbness, burning, tingling etc. (Man, my ________ is bugging me!) AND a somatic hyperawareness of that sensation (What if it never goes away? I can't stand it. What if it never goes away?? I can't stand it!!)
Both chronic pain and OCD involve interplays between biology/genetics and life experiences such as trauma. Both worsen with stress. And both can improve with cognitive therapies that lessen the brain's fear response.
The fact that psychotherapy can help with chronic pain doesn't mean pain isn't "real." It just recognizes that anxiety, grief and anger make the subconscious brain hypersensitive, reinforcing its need to "protect" you by hijacking your attention.
Common psychological techniques for pain and OCD include exposure therapies. Yes, you're ALREADY "exposed" to these sensations constantly — that's the problem! But the trick is to make the brain indifferent to the exposure. The less your brain cares about a sensation (or anything, really), the less attention it will give it and the less severe the discomfort will be.
Of course, we've known for decades that one's emotional state can aggravate or minimize chronic pain and OCD/anxiety/depression. That's nothing new.
But after spending years seeking help for a chronic neuropathic pain condition so intrusive in my mind that I can barely function, I realize there's lots of parallel information on both conditions separately but nothing that combines them. And I feel like combining the treatment for both — since it's pretty similar — could be really helpful for someone like me.
Am I alone?
TL;DR: Can we kill two birds with one stone by using the same cognitive treatments for hyperawareness/somatic OCD and chronic pain?
I will post some articles to illustrate what I mean in a comment below.

Hi all, I'm making this post in response to Safe_Action5954's cool initiative to ask ChatGPT what his daughter needs to be successful as an OMS-I at LECOM. I think ChatGPT did pretty well all things considered but I believe more experiential context can help incoming students. I commented that I would be happy to talk about what I think is beneficial for the first year and was flooded with requests so I figured this would be the best thing to guide everyone.
Few Disclaimers: This entire post/analysis of materials is my opinion and doesn't reflect anyone else's experience so there could be others who feel different about what I'm posting. I am part of the PBL program at LECOM-SH so things could be slightly different at the other campuses but it's all the same medicine at the end of the day so don't sweat the differences too much.
Some background on PBL to understand how it exactly functions. Each block (about 6ish weeks) is typically centered around a subject or body system. You will be assigned to a group which will meet a certain amount of times for that block. Each session you will work through a patient case that will exhibit a pathology that will be one of many you will be studying that block. As you go through the case ("problem" in problem based learning), the focus should be to work as a group to learn the normal physiology of the body, what goes wrong, how it presents, and then finally how to treat/manage the patient. The premise of the model is to simulate what you will see when you go to clinical's and residency so that it will be second nature for you versus your colleagues in LDP and DSP who may not have had this case work-through experience. That being said, the majority of your basic learning will be done outside of these sessions through reading a textbook and the purpose of these sessions is to put everything together and work with your group mates to find any missing links and help you master the material and truly understand it. The biggest drawback to this model is that it is heavily dependent on the members of your group and/or your facilitator so keep that in mind. Everything I'm talking about below are things that either helped me or didn't in this framework.
So I'm going to copy the original post's format and make my own so that it's easy to follow.

Textbooks & Handbooks

1. First Aid for the USMLE Step 1 - As a LECOM student, you are not required to take USMLE. However, many who are aiming for competitive specialties will end up taking both the required COMLEX and then USMLE. That being said, I think the First Aid book is something that everyone should have access to when it comes to PBL learning. I say "access" as you don't necessarily need a physical copy of the newest edition. My first year I think I had a digital copy of the previous year's book that I found through sources like lib gen. (Actually, I would argue the digital copy is better especially for PBL session like I'm about to explain.) The First Aid book is meant to be a reference for high-yield topics. IT IS NOT MEANT TO TEACH YOU THE MATERIAL. The material is to be learned through the provided textbooks from the school. However, having this resource can be invaluable in PBL sessions and/or your own studying as a quick reference or diagram may be better in First Aid than your textbook. There were definitely more than a handful of times where I felt that if it weren't for First Aid, I don't think I could've understood the material as quick as I did.
2. Robbins and Cotran Pathologic Basis of Disease - Meh. I mean, yes, Chat GPT was right that this book is crucial and important but all textbooks are provided for within your tuition so no need to buy it unless you prefer physical textbooks because you physically write/annotate in them. I would however suggest getting a copy of both the Pocket book for the above mentioned path book and the equivalent pocket book for the physio book. These pocketbooks are gold and will be so helpful for your learning. Worth every penny especially for path which you will do more in your second year. You will cover all physiology in your first year. Wouldn't hurt to get both for when you start PBL after anatomy.
3. Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy - Yes. Yes. This will be super helpful in those few early months when your speed run through anatomy. I referenced this a good bit during that time and helped me memorize things quicker. I also ripped a digital copy of this during my time. (I was spending enough on med school and wasn't looking to spend more lol.) I did use Complete Anatomy which is digital software to help memorize muscle structures, insertion/origins, blood vessels, and nerves. You can look into it but I don't think it's a "need".
4. Lippincott Illustrated Reviews - Sooo I've had a lot of classmates and friends recommend these and that it helps them but honestly for me it always felt like a waste of time. I borrowed and used them for one block and got my worst scores so I went back to what I was using before. This could be a specific case but YMMV. It seems that most use it for biochemistry but my suggestion would be to read the book and watch Ninja Nerd.

Online Resources, Learning Platforms, and Databases

1. UpToDate - Great resource that you should get yourself familiar with during your school years cause you'll use it for years to come. You get access to it being a LECOM student so don't worry about it for now until you start PBL cases.
2. PubMed - Never used it. Not really sure how this fits into PBL study when Chat GPT recommended it. Only thing I can say about this is that there was some research lecture we had to sit through and some person said this wasn't a good standard to use but honestly I forget what the reasoning for it was. You get access to it being a LECOM student so don't worry about it.
3. AccessMedicine - Had to search this up to see what this was so that's all I have to say about that one. I don't think you get this as a LECOM student but I could be wrong.
4. Pathoma - Absolutely great resource but it may be one that will help you more in your second year than first year as you cover more pathology the following year.
5. Boards & Beyond (B&B) - Absolutely phenomenal resource that can help guide you before you start reading a chapter. I used this so much and can't not recommend this and Sketchy when asked what helped me through my first year.
6. Khan Academy - Used this for the MCAT. Never typed that site again after that. Probably never will. Too basic for what you need to know.
7. Sketchy Medical/Pixorize - I love Sketchy! I'm a visual learner so Sketchy helps me memorize quick facts. HOWEVER, it is only a memorization aid. Understanding the why behind the patterns is more important than just know it. I only use it to memorize tons of similar stuff as once and then I go back to the textbook to hone my understanding. I think almost everyone recognized Sketchy as the best memorization resource when it comes to microbiology so don't forget about it when it comes to micro. I use for pharm as well. Sketchy is similar to Pixorize but I use Sketchy more cause POMA gives it to us for free.
8. Bootcamp - Have a lot of classmates who use this and I can say it is very impressive but I just personally prefer B&B so YMMV. Also, there's only so many resources I can pay for at once without breaking the bank.

However, keep in mind that these resources are to supplement your learning and you must rely on the textbooks. All questions come from the textbooks.

Study Tools

1. ANKI - I personally live by ANKI but I know that it's not everyone's cup of tea because everyone learns differently. I definitely do markedly better when I incorporated it into my studying. I'll typically use the ANKING deck and use topic tags to help drill basic knowledge before I dive into the book to make my notes and fully learn the material.
2. Brainscape - I think one person used this in our class but not sure if it helped them. Tbh ANKI is kinda the standard when it comes to this memorization stuff.
3. UWorld - Just like MCAT, I wouldn't worry about this until boards time. That's what it's meant for.
4. NBME Self-Examinations - Same thing as above.
5. AMBOSS - Something I didn't use my first year and truly regret it. If you sync it to your ANKI, when your cards mature you'll get questions and it's a great way to see if you're on track with your learning and prepared for the exam.

Study Groups and Forums

1. SDN - Haven't logged on since getting into school. But I might log on now as I continue my medical journey. Just not really all that helpful for PBL learning.
2. Reddit - I honestly open this app when I'm bored or when I need to distract myself so that explains that.

At the end of the day, everyone is a different learner. I have friends who did the complete opposite of me and still did as well as I did. It means that there is no one clear cut way to make PBL at LECOM successful for you. Medical school isn't easy and you need to put the work in for it. There's tons of supplemental resources out there to help you along the way and figuring out which ones work for you is half the battle. Most of us either still haven't quite figured it out while some have dialed it down to a t recently. It's always a battle as we are expected to learn more information by the day. Just remember that even though I listed all these resources, there's no way I did all of these all the time and especially for each chapter. There's just too many resources and not enough time. Pick and choose based on what you know has worked in the past. Good luck!
This is everything I can think of since the original post went up. Want to thank u/Safe_Action5954 for thinking of asking Chat GPT and resulting in this post. If you have questions please post them below so that answers from myself and/or others can benefit everyone viewing this post now or in the future. If it's something very specific, feel free to message me.
TLDR - everyone is a different learner and tools like First Aid, B&B, Sketchy, ANKI, AMBOSS is what I would recommend. however these are only study supplements and you need to focus on the textbooks to truly succeed.

No harems or trashy isekais (admittedly those overlap into basically a circle on the Venn diagram), otherwise I'm into pretty much anything.

This post is several years old, and it resurfaces on the internet every now and then, but i thought the sub would get a kick out of it, given all the fanfic on ryen/bill/others discussing historical events or politics in the cadence of sports talk.
I suspect many of us are in the venn diagram overlap of people who will appreciate the post, and it is quite simply one of the funniest things i have ever read. literally dozens of lines from this relatively short piece have seeped into my everyday vernacular, such as:
"Then he hits you with the sadness."
"They're in the mist and we're in the mist with them."
"The guy is not a genre writer!"
"Wallace. Killed himself. Look, I feel bad for the guy, but you read the books now and you want to kill yourself, too."
I could go on and on. Enjoy. Back after this.

So I've seen a lot of debate around the apparent overlap domains of these three entities if you place Dibella in the middle. A lot of people seem to be trying to identify where the dividing line is, but I think these people are looking at it from the wrong angle. I think most of these presumed divisions are either extremely blurry or non-existent.
I'm not claiming to have the answer here, I just think it's an interesting discussion and want to throw my opinion into the ring so I can see what other people think about it as well as get to hear their own opinions on it.
Starting with Dibella and Mara who both famously have "love" as part of their domain. I've seen people try to divide them between "love of beauty" for Dibella and "love of people" for Mara. But the way I see I think they simply co-own the domain of love. Love is a big concept, possibly too big for one god to handle alone. Both Mara and Dibella advocate altruism and closeness so I don't think there's any true difference between Dibella's love and Mara's love.
But now we move onto Dibella, Sanguine and their mutual claim over the domain of sexual pleasure. Which will be what the rest of this post is about. The debate around this dynamic gets a lot spicier and Haelga who runs the bunkhouse in Riften in Skyrim is often the center of it since she claims to be devoted to Dibella yet is an absolutely awful person.
I see a lot of people saying that Haelga is a fake worshipper of Dibella because the sex is "loveless". But I don't think that aspect in particular would offend Dibella. Priests of Dibella have also implied a desire to be promiscuous with strangers so I don't think whether sex is loving or platonic is something Dibella is concerned with. Maybe Dibella would prefer people have affection for each other before having sex but I don't think she really cares too much as long as both parties are enjoying it. I think Dibella simply wants people to engage in sex in any form as long as it's consensual. After all, they're called "Dibellan ARTS" and true art is done for its own sake.
And it's the "consent" part that makes me think Dibella would be displeased with Haelga. It's heavily implied she once spiked Bolli's drink to get him to sleep with her, which makes Haelga a rapist and I can't imagine a being like Dibella who calls for kindness and altruism would ever support that. That layered on top of Haelga's cruelty towards her niece is what makes her a poor Dibella worshipper, but the promiscuity alone I think does not.
But back to the loving vs. platonic sex. Again I think Dibella just wants mortals to enjoy the pleasures of intercourse which Dibella thinks is beautiful. And that is where her rivalry with Sanguine comes in. I've seen people asking the question of why Dibella supposedly hates Sanguine since they're both advocates of having sex. And I think the reason is simply because Sanguine makes it look bad. The world frowns on people who have frequent sex with multiple partners and consider it debaucherous i.e. Sanguine's domain. Which is what upsets Dibella because he's taken something she considers beautiful and warped everyone's perception of it into something to be ashamed of.
TL;DR Here's a venn diagram of the domains of these three entities as I understand it.

The Venn diagram of DND and BDSM is probably not surprising. Geeks can have debauched imaginations! Just look at the plethora of graphic novels, anime, games, literature, and shows out there that are bordering upon nerd smut. Then there is the ultimate game of danger, damsels, and debauchery; Dungeons & Dragons (D&D).
In its past, Dungeons & Dragons has been perceived as promoting pornography, and moral panic about role-playing games peaked in the 1980s. Since its debut in 1974, D&D has only grown in popularity, and played by more than 50 million people! The game has also moved beyond the tabletop to other mediums, including television, books, animation, and movies.
D&D started as an afterthought to Chainmail, an earlier game created by Gygax, where at the end of the rules was included around a dozen pages of supplementary rules that went beyond the normal historical fare outlined in war games - and thus, D&D was born (with the adaptive help of Arneson).
D&D may be its golden age as, in recent years, D&D has experienced a surge of popularity due to the game’s latest edition being more accessible than previous versions, making it much easier for newcomers to understand the rules.
Understanding the rules and creatures of D&D still requires a rampant imagination though - and a good imagination is sexy. With regards to BDSM, if you can’t imagine a sexy scene then it’s not going to achieve the desired, sensual effect. You can’t build anticipation and sexual suspense if you are clueless to kink.
Imagination is a powerful tool; it is fun and playful, and allows you to be creative, to see new perspectives, and to be open to surprises, uniqueness, and possibilities - which is a rather useful tool to have when trying out new kinks or developing known and enjoyed ones.
This is my personal experience; using the imagination has a certain element of romance to it. Being creative is freeing, and far from the robotic automation of day-to-day life. It can enhance your romantic relationships by using fantasies to create novelty and sexual arousal (without the need to change your partner).
In a study conducted by Justin Lehmiller (Tell me what you want, 2018), it found that one of the most common sexual fantasy forms (among Americans) is BDSM (Bondage, Discipline, Dominance, Submission, Sadism and Masochism).
The relationship between sexual fantasies and reality is complex. Fantasies need to be perceived as real so that they allow those fantasizing to experience them as credible. Although, fulfilling fantasies does require a modicum of separation from the current circumstances and embracing an alternative, exciting scenario.
There are lots of benefits that can come from using your imagination, and in combination with BDSM, one thing that this can teach D&D is about the importance of consent. Some ways of incorporating safe practices into D&D include: • At the beginning of a new tabletop role-playing game (RPG) campaign, begin with a large ‘X’ drawn on a piece of paper, and explain that if any of the subjects encountered while roleplaying are ‘too much’, then tap the X to immediately pause events. This way, any upsetting subject can be bypassed completely, or players could take a break and re-evaluate how to proceed. • Start with a ‘session zero,’ where players can freely discuss the topics that they would rather avoid in-game, and can discuss whether a boundary can be pushed or not. • The Game Master can offer a pre-campaign form to fill in where each player can safely and in confidence inform the GM of any subjects to avoid in-game. Check out the free PDF created by (Monte Cook Games) Shanna Germain and Sean Reynolds, ‘Consent in Gaming.’
The aim here is to make tabletop roleplaying as safe as it is enjoyable. For those who want to further the discussion of consent in roleplay, however, there is another community with a toybox full of experienced advice. Say, ‘hello,’ to the Dungeon Masters from the other side of roleplaying. This community has an entire vocabulary, acronyms, and ethos dedicated to consent. It seems to be one of the only communities that have built structures for consent – and the only places outside of that community that have built them did so because they naughtily peeked at the kink community.
It can be as simple as talking about what type of game you would like to play. You are there to experience an enjoyable gameplay with each other, whether it be over a café tabletop or in the bedroom. Consent just helps all those involved to relax, and it enhances the experience.
So, what do you consent to in a game, anyway? Consent here is concerned with the kinds of content that you want to crop up in your gameplay, from the traditional things, such as dragons and hobbits, to things like spiders, harm coming to children, or elements of body horror like gore and eyeballs. Any mature or sensitive content might make some players uncomfortable or evoke feelings of panic, bring up past trauma, and therefore, put a huge dampener on what should be a fun, light-hearted game.
Consent ultimately comes down to you deciding what is safe for you. It is always your choice, and nobody else gets to make it for you. With regards to D&D, even if the GM and other players are excited about a new story or plot twist, it does not mean that you must agree and accept it. You should not be persuaded or pushed into giving your consent to anything that you are uncomfortable with – and if anybody does do this, then it is a sign of a lack of respect and ignorance on their part.
It all comes down to trust. A consent checklist is your admittance that some things make you uncomfortable, and this is scary in and of itself, as you are exposing a ‘weakness’. You are opening yourself up and being vulnerable, showing someone where you are either hurt or scared, and hoping that they do not ridicule you for it. This is where the BDSM community can teach and comfort you when it comes to giving consent.
Types of (BDSM) consent: • SSC: Safe, Sane and Consensual means that everything is based on safe activities, that all participants are of sufficiently sound mind in their conduct, and that all participants do consent. • RACK: Risk Aware Consensual Kink shows a preference for a style in which the individual responsibility of the involved parties is emphasized more strongly, with each participant being responsible for his or her own well-being. • PRICK: Personal Responsibility, Informed, Consensual Kink makes it clear that all practitioners should take personal responsibility for their kink, that you understand what is about to happen (risks and all). The concept being that if you take personal responsibility for yourself and you are informed, then you can truly consent. • SSICK: Safe, Sane, Informed, Consensual Kink incorporates all of the above, to preclude abuse and violation of another's wellbeing.
When you give consent, it is a gift which says that you trust the other person enough to listen to your needs. This takes guts. Contrary to how icky and restrictive ticking off a PDF list of possible horrors might initially feel, it is also surprisingly freeing. By giving consent and highlighting boundaries, there is the opportunity to explore the gameplay deeper. Once the ‘rules’ are set, you know what you can and can not do, which means you can much more confidently strut into the gameplay with more confidence. Your imagination is free to run rampant, and you might find that your character wants romance, or more gore, and you can safely steer in a direction that makes you happy. You will be able to play your games more comfortably, and as a result, there will be better quests, better scenes, better adventures, and lots more fun.
Do not be afraid to say, ‘no,’ and remember that your consent is a gift that keeps everything safe, sane, and consensual all you glorious, beautiful kinksters.

littlemistresssays #bdsm #kinks #spicy #bdsmcommunity #kinkcommunity #bdsmeducator #kinkeducator #spicyeducator #newsletter #June2024 #consent #dungeonsanddragons

Just curious how many of us are doing well. No kids. Does not have a divorce on the books. And was able to navigate life through their late 40s and 50s, and doing well. I feel like I'm in a very small Venn diagram.