Already installed: 1. Gemini 1.5 pro integrated into Gemini advanced 2. Gemini 1.5 pro integrated into notebooklm 3. Gemini 1.5 pro integrated into Google workspace sidebar 4. Gemini advanced document upload 5. Gemini 1.5 flash (located in ai studio) 6. Project idx waitlist removed 7. PaliGemma (located in PaliGemma on GitHub, Hugging Face models, Kaggle, Vertex AI Model Garden, ai.nvidia.com) 8. Google AI Edge Torch
Apply for waitlist 1. Gemini 1.5 pro 2M token (located in ai studio) 2. VideoFX (located in ai test kitchen) 3. Imagen 3 (same as above)
coming soon: 1. Google sge will add video understanding and integrate into Google lens 2. Starting from chrome 126, Gemini nano will be integrated 3. Refactor Android with ai as the core 4. Adding data analysis capabilities for tables in the coming weeks 5. Adding new travel planning features in the summer 6. Gems for GPTs 7. In the summer, Gemini multimodal, two-way conversations using voice 8. Organize attachments, generate worksheets, and analyze data in drive 9. Bring multi-step reasoning to Google Search 10. Ask questions about images in the album 11. Gemma 2 (27b) 12. New context caching features for APIs 13. Gemini 1.5 pro integration in Android studio 14. Later this year, Android accessibility features will be enhanced through Gemini nano with talkback 15. Later this year, drag and drop generated images into Google Messages and Gmail, and ask questions about YouTube videos and PDFs directly on the device

This story was originally written July 2023.
You might have heard of me. I was a social media influencer for two years.
I know kids have “influencer” as one of their top professions these days, but for me it was all an accident, really. I uploaded a few YouTube videos back in 2019, in the summer I finished school. All I did was rant about movies. I had a few notes, not a full script, and just spouted off to my laptop camera about inaccurate science, bad casting choices, real nitpicky stuff. In about six months I’d got 200 subscribers.
I was at university then, and I mentioned my videos to some of my uni friends. They subbed and told their friends, and I got up to 1,000 sub by January 2020. My videos were only about ten minutes long, and I had nowhere near the views to monetise. I was making one a week, but not on any sort of schedule. It was just something I did when I was bored.
Then the pandemic hit. A lot of students here in England basically got locked into their halls of residence (that’s dorms for any Americans reading), but I was lucky enough to get back to my parents’ before then. So I was doing what my uni laughably called “remote learning”, which basically meant a couple of video lectures a week, some worksheets, and lots and lots of my own research. I won’t bore you with the topic of my course; it’s not relevant.
I’m not exactly stereotypically pretty. I’ve come to accept that. My hair is stringy, my nose is too big, my face is profoundly asymmetrical, my complexion is strange and acned, my teeth are crooked … You get the idea. You can only do so much with makeup and hair that covers your face. I probably have fewer friends than I would if I looked like other people, and it actually took a lot of courage to make that first video - and even more courage to upload it.
I can only assume that’s the reason I went viral. It certainly wasn’t the high production values, or the tightly-written scripts, or the quality of my research. On the 9th of April I had 1,322 subscribers. On the 10th it was over 8,000. By the end of April it was up to 300,000, and I had actually monetised my channel.
The comments were … well, they were varied. Lots of hate because of my looks, but lots of love from people who just appreciated what I put out there, calling out others for their negative comments. I know many social media stars struggle with unkind comments, but I’d got used to it. Let’s be honest, they weren’t nice, but neither were they untrue. And comments under your video are easier to ignore than comments in the street. I was making decent money after all. If you were one of those commenters, you know which side you were on, and I love you either way. Thanks for the engagement - it’s not easy to gain financially from your unusual appearance!
The trouble with going viral is that it doesn’t last. Competing in the fast-paced world of internet stardom takes a lot of effort. I started experimenting with other things - YouTube shorts, TikTok, Instagram, pretty much anything going. The format that turned out to work best was actually TikTok. I’d bought some skimpy outfits and did ridiculous little dances. I quickly reached over a thousand views per video, and while I wasn’t up to their creator tier, it still worked. A well-known cosmetics company asked to sponsor my videos.
Cosmetics! Me! I guess they were going for woke points or something. I didn’t care, they offered me more money than I knew what to do with, as long as my views stayed high. So I started making 2-minute videos. A dance without make-up, then I applied the make-up - being sure to show the brand name clear and up-close - and then the same dance with make-up. If this is ringing any bells with you, then yes - that was me. And no, stupid - that’s not my real name.
I’d got used to undesired attention of course. Along with the unpleasant comments, I got my fair share of unwelcome male approaches. For a few hours after any upload, about half of my DMs were from men, and some women (or men with female account names), asking to see more of me. I wasn’t a camgirl, though I suppose I wasn’t a million miles away from one; but I could have been. I did seriously consider it a few times, but never actually followed through.
And half of the rest of my DMs, and a good portion of the public comments, were from angry women. What made me think I had the right to show off like that? How could I bring their favourite cosmetics brand into disrepute? But I’ve got pretty thick skin (hey, I can make that joke, you can’t), and mostly laughed the comments off and ignored them.
That was, in hindsight, a mistake.
By September my uni was reopening for in-person teaching. I was working six or seven hours a day just to keep up with everything, and had a couple more brands sponsoring me. Being an influencer isn’t just about filming for ten minutes a day and watching the money come in!
So I was going to tutorials an hour a day, watching video lectures at 2x speed, and ignoring my assignments in favour of making videos and replying to messages. It’s not like my pointless degree was helping with my real job.
Okay fine. It was geology. Rocks and stuff. You happy now? I bet you can’t tell the difference between sylvite and carnallite just by licking it, can you?
Anyway, the point is I came close to being chucked out. Actually I had to repeat the second year. At least I could afford it.
So anyway, I somehow got through to the end of my second year, the end of my second year again, and part way through my third year. I was passing my exams - just - and through several reinventions I had managed to maintain my social influencer role. Last Autumn I was getting some good views, and cash, back on YouTube. I was getting pretty good at make-up (I had an exclusive deal with one company on TikTok, and another deal with a different cosmetics company on YouTube). The videos that did well then were me with experimental hairstyles and not much in the way of clothes, putting on makeup for a few minutes, then reading out-of-copyright fiction in my patented “YouTube voice”. If you can imagine a cross between Shania Twain and Marge Simpson then… well, then you’re weird, but you’ve pretty much got it.
Then, last December, a week or so before the Christmas holidays, I went out with my friends. I had made a decent number, both girls and guys, by then. I could never quite tell whether it was my personality (which I assure you is fantastic), my influencer status, or the cash I was liberal with (it always seemed to be my round, and I didn’t mind). There were even a couple of boys who were keen on me, though I hadn’t done anything about it yet. Eight of us went out together to celebrate a birthday. It wasn’t actually anybody’s birthday that day, but Shireen had a Christmas Day birthday, and she wanted a proper party.
Now I look quite different in real life than I do online. I think the technical term is “frumpy” - jeans, trainers, fluffy jumper and a hat, or maybe a hoodie. The birthday girl had somehow convinced me to put a bit more effort in, and had helped me pick out some heels and a knee-length silver dress. Make-up was easy for me of course, and so I got dressed up and off we went to the Black Swan.
The Black Swan has several great qualities about it. One: it’s cheap. Two: it does good food. Three: it’s a couple of hundred metres from The Bar. We had a decent meal, a few drinks, and around 9 we walked to The Bar.
To be more precise, they walked. I wobbled. If you’ve watched my videos you might have seen me in heels, but did you ever see me walk in them? Didn’t think so.
The Bar is open til 3 in the morning. It looks respectable enough from the outside, especially in the afternoon; but after about 11, when most pubs close, it fills up with students drinking expensive-looking drinks. And almost every night, somebody jumps up onto a table, and then everybody’s up there dancing. In The Bar, either you hold your drink tightly, or you lose it.
I’d done this before, and I can handle my alcohol. I’ve stayed at The Bar till chuckout more than a few times, and I’ve been wobbly on the way home, but I’ve never thrown up or passed out. And so I was surprised when I woke up. The last thing I remembered was Stu saying he was tired, and Shireen replying that it wasn’t even midnight yet. Now I was lying on the hard wooden floor of my living room.
My head pounded. Daylight streamed through the window, and I blinked a few times and rubbed my eyes. My hands were wet and sticky.
I looked at them. They were covered in blood.
I looked down. My heels were across the room, but I was still wearing my dress. It, also, was covered in blood, a huge stain across the chest.
Panic set in. What happened to me last night? I checked myself out and could find no injuries. Where did the blood come from?
Standing up, I realised it was worse than that. Red pools stained the wooden floor. I don’t know much medicine, but if somebody had lost this much blood, I couldn’t see how they could have survived.
I stood up, unsure whether my shaking was from the shock or the alcohol. This was when I saw a shirt on the floor behind me. White, with a subtle pattern. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that it wasn’t my shirt. I lived alone, and rarely invited people back to my flat. I looked around some more. A pair of men’s black leather shoes by the door. And then I saw it.
I suppose, rather, I should say him. He was naked except for a pair of dark blue jeans, slumped in the open doorway to the kitchen, covered in blood, and very, very, dead.
I panicked then. I’m calmer now, so let’s take a moment to describe my conclusions that morning. I had got very drunk. I had met a guy. We’d come back to my flat. We’d been getting naked (the shoes and shirt weren’t bloodied). Then, for some reason, we’d had an argument or a fight. The body had stab wounds in the chest, and a pool of blood had congealed onto the wooden floor of the living room and the linoleum of the kitchen where the man collapsed. How did those stab wounds get there? I didn’t know for sure, but a quick glance at my kitchen counter showed that my sharp carving knife was missing. It was all coming together. I didn’t know if he had picked up the knife, or if I had; I didn’t know why either of us would do that. I didn’t even know his name, and later when I checked his pockets, I couldn’t find any ID.
There was a lot I didn’t know. But I’m smart. So once I was done crying on the floor (I think it was about two hours), I came up with a plan. This man was dead, and I couldn’t do anything about that. But what would the consequences be? There’s no need for my life to be ruined as well. I decided not to call the police. People go missing mysteriously all the time, he can just be another statistic and I’ll get on with my life.
The blood on Dave was mostly dry by now. (Sure, I didn’t know his name, but every bloke’s called Dave, right?) So I put a badly-fitting vest on him to soak up the remaining blood, and his shirt over the top, along with his shoes. His jeans were bloody, but they were dark, so hopefully it wouldn’t show up in low light. I couldn’t find his coat, which was odd given how cold it was, but this would have to do. I put my dress and heels in a plastic bag, and grabbed a spade that I never used. Had I missed anything?
The knife. The fucking knife. I searched all over for it, but by the time it got dark I still hadn’t found it. I knew I couldn’t delay for long, so I figured it was best to deal with Dave now, and find the knife later.
Eight o’clock in the evening came. I’m lucky I have parking right outside my house, no street cameras, and a ground-floor flat. I put the bag in the boot of my car and came back for the body.
Have you ever tried to move a dead person? It’s not easy, and I’m not exactly strong. I put my arm around his waist and eventually managed to heave him almost upright. “Come on Dave, that’s it. We’re gonna get you home. Maybe calm down on the tequila next time right? Try to keep it in, and don’t you dare vomit in my car, you sexy bastard.”
Oh come on, what do you want from me? I’m an influencer, not a stand-up comedian. And anyway, I don’t think anybody saw me during the several minutes it took to drag Dave to the passenger seat. I really wish I’d got round to buying a bigger car than the Fiat Punto I’d had since I was 18, but it was too late for that now.
There’s a place about an hour’s drive from me called Epping Forest. The Heritage Trust reckon it’s most famous for its huge tracts of unspoiled wildlife, thousands of trees, and Iron Age settlements. But around here it’s best known as the place where murderers and gang members bury bodies. So off I trundled in my 1.2 litre pensioner-mobile. I arrived around 9:30, checked Google Maps, and drove offroad into the woods.
Do you know how long it takes to dig a grave? The answer is: a long time! By dawn I’d only managed a hole about two feet. Oh, and it was my third try, because the first two times I found too much rock. Well, it would have to do. In went Dave, and I shovelled the ground back over him. I thought I could put my clothes in with him, but it was a shallow grave, and when the inevitable dog-walker finds it I didn’t want them linked back to me. I mean, there’s my DNA in there for sure, but let’s not make it too easy for them, right? So I chucked the spade in a river, and the clothes went back home with me, including the vest I’d lent him.
Now in England we have a thing called ANPR everywhere. The police can just type in a car registration and see exactly where it’s been from traffic cameras. I needed an alibi. Why had I gone to Epping Forest? For a hike of course! So I walked around for a few hours, got breakfast at a pub, and told the staff about all the wacky adventures I’d had that night. And while I was there, for the first time in a good long time, I checked my phone.
Hundreds of messages, of course. But only one sent a shiver down my spine.
Jolly_Gal_56234
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID
My heart thumped. My ears started ringing. I felt dizzy, nearly passed out. How could anybody know?
Of course nobody knew. I actually got messages like this fairly often. Just some idiot trying to wind people up. They’d probably sent a dozen messages just like it, to random people, and I just blocked her. Still it rattled me. I finished my breakfast, paid up, walked back to my car, and drove home.
My flat was just as I left it. Dave was gone, but his blood was still there. I scrubbed the floor for hours, and it helped a bit, but you could still see the stains. Exhausted, I showered and went to bed.
The next morning I woke up. I hadn’t posted anything for a day and a half, so I needed to do something about that. Scrolling through my messages, one stood out like a police light.
Jolly_Gal_28473
YOU’VE BEEN A BAD GIRL 🔪
Shit. SHIT! What the fuck is going on? I stared at my phone, paralysed with indecision. When I finally snapped out of it I made sure the door was locked, and tried to come up with a plan.
I had no idea who was sending these. Maybe they didn’t really know anything. You send stupid messages like that to hundreds of people, you’re gonna come across one who’s actually done something bad, right? I poured myself a big glass of gin, decided that nobody could know anything, and made a video.
Remember that one where I didn’t speak at all, just danced for three minutes dressed like 90s Britney to 70s disco music, titled “HANGOVER DANCE”? Yeah, that’s the one. I didn’t trust myself to speak without breaking, but I could dance about as well as I ever could.
The rest of the day I answered messages, emailed my sponsors, and considered getting an agent. It’s still just me doing everything, and that Sunday afternoon, I really didn’t want to. I also spent a few hours scrubbing the wooden floor with baking soda and vinegar, and looking for the knife.
I kept getting messages from Jolly_Gal. It didn’t matter how much I blocked her, she just popped up again the next day with different numbers at the end of her username. Always all-caps, just a single sentence.
YOU DON’T DESERVE IT
YOU’LL GET WHAT’S COMING TO YOU
OWN UP
DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT
Exactly one message a day, but always at different times. I decided it was a bot, and it was just coincidence that it started when it did. Until Christmas Day.
I’d been back at my parents’ for a few days, and endured the usual conversations about what I was going to do for a “proper job” after uni. They’re great, and really supportive. They’ve just never understood what an “influencer” really is, and that “playing on my phone” for six hours a day counts as work. My brother Rich gets it, but the rest of my family is honestly baffled.
Anyway, Christmas morning comes. All four of us were in the house together (my brother’s 17 so he still lives there), and we gathered together in the living room opening presents. It was a couple of weeks since the incident, and I still had nightmares every night, and those sudden panic attacks - you know, when you’re sure you’re going to be found out - but I was getting used to it. It had happened, I couldn’t change it, and I’d have to keep it secret for the rest of my life; but it was becoming a sort of background hum. I don’t know if that’s too quick, but I suppose I’ve learned to handle difficulty in my life.
Until we finished opening presents and I checked my phone.
Jolly_Gal_814385
HAPPY CHRISTMAS
And underneath, a photo of my kitchen knife, stained with blood.
I ran out of the house in tears.
Rich found me, sitting on the wooden bridge down the road from the house, my legs dangling over the river. I came here a lot when I was a teenager, so it was the first place he looked. I’d left my phone on the living room floor, and the three of them had seen the message, so he knew what triggered me. He just didn’t know the full story.
Well, I told him. I mean, not everything, obviously. But I told him how this person had been harassing me for weeks. He listened sympathetically, like he’s always done, and asked if there was anything he could do to help. I didn’t say anything; I just turned around, hugged him, and cried into his Christmas sweater.
After about half an hour we went back to the house. Rich explained things to my parents, thank goodness. I don’t think I could have handled it.
The rest of the holiday was … okay, I guess. More messages from Jolly_Gal, but only text. I made videos most days, and met all two of my old schoolfriends for drinks, movies and shopping. They’re big fans of my channels. I even took Rich out for drinks one evening, though it took us four pubs to find somewhere that wouldn’t ID him. He’s a bit of a babyface.
I did all I could not to think about Dave. I put him to the back of my mind, letting him live in the shed at the bottom of the garden of my psyche where he couldn’t disturb me. I guess that’s why it came as a shock to me, when I packed my stuff into the boot of my car to head back to uni.
There was one suitcase I’d packed but hadn’t got round to taking into the house. And peeking around the edge was that plastic bag. I’d forgotten to get rid of it!
Dad was helping me load the car, so I couldn’t do anything about it. I tucked it out of sight, finished loading up, said goodbye, and drove back to uni. It was dark when I got back, so I unpacked everything else, triple-bagged my bloody clothes, left my phone at home (no tracking me!), and walked two miles to drop them into somebody else’s wheelie bin.
The next morning I checked my messages.
Jolly_Gal_12592
WELCOME HOME
And a photo of me dumping the bag the night before.
You know what? This didn’t bother me. I mean, it did bother me, but not as much as I guess Jolly_Gal hoped. I’ve been bullied and harassed most of my life, and I’ve got pretty good at ignoring it. Sure, it was an escalation - she was actually following me - but it was just one of almost thirty messages. Jolly_Gal was hoping to destroy me. Instead, she hardened my resolve.
Clearly she had enough evidence to go to the police, but she hadn’t. And obviously she lived nearby. Now I’m no hacker, but you don’t do a job like mine without learning your way around technology. So I started sleuthing. I hadn’t bothered blocking her after the third or fourth message, so I made a list of all the messages, including timecodes. I’ve got a geology degree (almost), and we have techniques to analyse rock strata. Finally I had a genuine use for all that studying I sort of did!
Jolly_Gal was not as clever as she thought. She’d got sloppy. About half of her messages were sent at strange hours, on the hour. These were presumably posted by her bot. But the other messages were all sent between 7 and 8 am, or between 6 and 10 pm. So I guessed that she has a normal 9-5 day job, or maybe she’s a student.
Next I searched all the social media sites I could think of for Jolly_Gal or JollyGal usernames. There are a few, so please don’t go harassing people with that username! I don’t want innocent people to get hurt. After a few hours I had profiles of all Jolly_Gals. Pictures, locations, partial travel history, even birthdays for some of them. I discounted those who clearly weren’t in England, but I still had too many to narrow it down. The photos had no EXIF data so I couldn’t tell the type of phone or camera they used.
So my days became something like this: Five hours doing uni stuff, five hours working on my socials, and an hour or two learning digital sleuthing. I still went out with my friends sometimes, but made sure not to drink too much. I know how to have a good time without being drunk!
The breakthrough came by total chance. I rarely read the local papers, and just got lucky one afternoon in March. I was waiting for a friend in the pub after lectures, and there was a copy of the Post somebody had left on a table. So I flicked through it. The local council was rubbish at doing traffic. Some group of OAPS was organising a May Day celebration. And a woman had been convicted of body-snatching.
I recognised her! There was a photo of a woman in her early twenties. She’d been arrested when a corpse went missing back in December, and they’d seen her take it on the morgue’s CCTV. She’d been released on bail. “Prevention of the lawful and decent burial of a dead body” is a rare crime these days, so she hadn’t been sentenced yet; instead she was released until her sentencing, expected to be in August. Her name was Jenny Smith, which is so common as to be almost useless - that is, if you don’t have a profile of her on your laptop at home!
The report also gave her address. So I started hatching a plan. I texted my friend that I wouldn’t make it, and went home.
Jolly_Gal, or rather, Jenny, lived near me, and actually went to the same university. She had accounts on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, and a few others. Of course you can’t get Jolly_Gal by itself these days, but my profile gave all her precise usernames. I spent my evening watching her videos and reading her tweets. And then I found the smoking gun.
Jenny had posted a video on TikTok last June bitching about me. She’s way prettier than me, and yet I’d got all the subs and follows. She deserved all those sponsorship deals. It wasn’t fair that I had hundreds of thousands of subs and she only had a few thousand. She even said I was ugly and deserved to die.
Well, she got one out of two right, I guess. You can decide which one.
It all started to slot into place. Jenny was absurdly jealous of me, so she’d hatched a plan to destroy me. She must have roofied me in The Bar, got me and Dave back to my place, stabbed him, poured blood everywhere, and taken the knife home. I mean, I don’t know anything about forensic science, and I was drugged and panicked when I woke up that morning. I’d have no way of knowing that Dave had died days before he ended up in my flat!
I’d never managed to get all the blood out of the wooden flooring, and ended up putting a really misplaced rug over it. I chiselled off a sample and gave it to one of my friends who was doing a PhD in biology. It took a bit of persuading, but he ran an analysis on it.
It was pig’s blood.
Fuck Jenny. She’s not Jenny, or Jolly_Gal, she’s fucking Carrie!
She planned to destroy me. She ruined my mental health, she framed me for murder. All because I was more popular on TikTok than she was. Well, two can play at that game. I didn’t deserve what Jenny did to me. She did.
I thought about this all night, coming up with plan after plan, weighing them in my head. I wanted two things: to destroy Jenny, and to feel good about it for myself. Finally I had a course of action I’m actually rather proud of.
I decided to start slow. I did something anybody could have done - I mocked up a poster. At the top was “Jenny Smith - body snatcher!”. Underneath were two pictures, her Insta profile pic and the courthouse photo from the paper, and between them: “From This … To This!” And all her various social media handles to top it off. I printed hundreds of these, and pinned them all around the university and her street.
I’ve never thought of myself as an unkind person - God knows I’ve suffered enough myself to be sympathetic to others. But I’m willing to admit I felt a lot of satisfaction seeing her comments fill up with accusations and links to the online article. Jenny carried on making videos, but I could tell she was suffering. Good!
That was stage one. I had to up the ante for stage two. Jenny had covered me and my flat with pig’s blood, so I think we all know what’s coming next.
I pondered for a long time whether I should do it in the day or the night. But you know what they say - go big or go home. I scoped out her house for a while, and found out that she leaves her kitchen window, at the back of the house, open. Now I’m not the most athletic girl in the world, but I can be pretty determined when I want to be. So one night around 2 am I walked to her house - it’s only about half a mile - and climbed through the window.
I almost gave myself a heart attack when I knocked a glass over on the kitchen sink! Luckily it didn’t smash. I hid in a corner and waited for a full half hour before I decided Jenny hadn’t heard me. Then I snuck upstairs, slow as anything, and crept into her room.
Actually, the first room wasn’t hers. She shared with a couple of other students. Thank fuck I checked first! The second room was the right one. She was asleep, alone, in a double bed. I was so quiet that the only thing I could hear was my heart pounding in my chest as I opened my canvas bag, gently deposited its contents onto the pillow next to her, and took a photo. It didn’t come out that well - I couldn’t use the flash - but hey, I have a souvenir!
I really wish I’d seen her face when she woke up the next morning, staring at a pig’s head. She didn’t post on her socials for a week after that, and for two days she even forgot to send me a threatening message.
I’m sorry? You think I’m done? Oh, my sweet summer child. I’ve barely begun.
Jenny had a boyfriend, Abdul. I made sure he wasn’t around when I broke in, but stage three involved him in a big way.
Abdul was also at our university, a year younger than me, a year older than Jenny. He wasn’t very active on social media, but he did tend to broadcast his activity on Twitter. And what do you know? He’s also a fan of The Bar. So I spent the next month planning my move. I bought a new clubbing dress and heels - hey, I kinda missed that outfit! - and asked around for the other thing I needed. Some things you can’t just buy in Next, or a local butcher’s, but eventually I managed it.
I got my chance one Friday in May. Abdul had loudly announced on Twitter that he was excited for his boys’ night out in The Bar, and Jenny had been gushing about a girls’ night on the whole other side of town. Perfect. I spent hours on my makeup, and got to The Bar around ten. Abdul and his mates were having a drinking contest, and leching up at the girls dancing on the tables.
I figured I had a good long while before he would be ready, so I had a couple of drinks - not too much, but like I said I can handle myself, and I knew Jenny wasn’t around - and got up on the tables myself for a bit. Then about midnight Abdul’s friend got another round in, while Abdul was in the loo. This was my chance. I walked up to their table - which had no dancing feet on it, but a heck of a lot of spilled beer - and started talking to them, saying I thought their friend was hot.
“Uh, what the fuck?” “Not a chance in hell.” “Get lost, freak!”
Lovely chaps. But they were too far gone to notice me dropping something into Abdul’s double-whiskey-and-coke. For all I know, it’s the exact same thing Jenny used on me all those months ago.
Abdul came back and downed his whiskey in one gulp. I was worried he was going to vomit it up, but he held it in and blamed his difficulty on the coke fizz. Yeah mate, sure, sure.
Not too long after, he started to fade. His friends were really taking the piss out of him for being such a lightweight. Well, when I came over, the pisstaking just got worse. I introduced myself (with a fake name, duh) and told him he was hot. Believe it or not, it was only about twenty seconds before he put his tongue down my throat. Wow, I’m not sure I even needed to bother with the roofie!
His friends, who had been so intent on being mean to me, now turned their attention to him. I suggested we ditch them and go back to his place (I’d checked, it was only five minutes’ walk sober) - and off we went.
That was the first time I had sex. I’m sure I don’t need to go into details, but we did a lot of stuff, and I enjoyed it. I’m not sure if that’s because it was good, or because he was good, or because I knew what it was all for. I was impressed that he managed to keep going as long as he did in his state, but I do feel a bit sorry for him; from his Twitter he seems like a decent guy.
When he finally fell asleep I left. I’d got what I came for - pictures. And the next day I made a new account and sent a DM to Jenny.
At first I blurred my face, or chose shots that didn’t include it. A bit of editing and I could have been anybody. I watched their messy breakup on Twitter, Jenny hurling accusations, Abdul protesting his innocence. I know this is the age of social media, but I never understood why people play these things out in public.
And then, after posting a picture a day for a few weeks (I’d taken a lot of pictures), I sent one that showed my face clearly.
Jenny had managed to restrain herself from replying before, but now she knew who I was. She was furious! The very idea that her boyfriend had cheated on her with ME, of all people, was unbelievable. And this was exactly the outcome I’d been going for.
Jolly_Gal was broken. She’d ruined her reputation. She’d lost her boyfriend. She had nightmares about pigs (okay, so I don’t know that for certain, but in my imagination she woke up screaming every night). She was possibly going to prison. And now she knew that not only was I more successful than her as an influencer, but I was the one to steal her lover. She still sent messages, at first angry, but they soon degenerated into pleading. “Please stop.” “I’m sorry.” “We can work this out.” Jolly_Gal without CAPS LOCK, it was glorious to see.
In fact it was almost perfect. Three stages of my plan were complete, and only one remained. Jenny’s sentencing was in three weeks, so I had to move quickly.
She had two flatmates, so I needed to work around them. They weren’t particularly active on Twitter, but Jenny was. I knew from her tweets that while her flatmates had gone home, she was staying on a couple of weeks after the end of term. She didn’t say why publicly, but it was for her trial. No flatmates, no boyfriend. Now was the time.
And that brings us up to date. I’ve typed this up over the last few days, and saved as a draft. The final chapter, hopefully, comes tonight.
*******
I’m at Jenny’s house, and I’ve just called the police.
I turned up at Jenny’s door just after seven. Luck was with me - she’d tweeted that she was expecting a Deliveroo takeout. And I got there first.
The idiot actually kept the knife. I’d seen it when I was in her room. When she answered the doorbell, expecting food, and saw me - ah, the look on her face was priceless.
“I’m so sorry! Please, let’s just talk. I didn’t mean it to get this -”
I stalked towards her, anger in my face. Jenny fled upstairs. Perfect! She went into her room and shut the door, but I was like the furies of Greek legend. I smashed the door in, and looked on as Jenny cowered on her bed.
In full daylight, I saw the knife took pride of place in what looked like a shrine. She had photos of me printed out, and she’d written on them “BITCH”, “WHORE”, “FREAK” and all sorts of other hateful words.
Jenny had tried to make me into a murderer, so I gave her what she wanted. I grabbed the knife and stood over her. The coward shrank into the bed, begging for forgiveness, pleading for her life. Unfortunately for her I was not inclined to oblige. I plunged the knife into her chest, just as she had done to Dave all those many months ago. Jenny whimpered like a whipped dog, and after the ninth stab (yes, I counted), she stopped.
The police are on their way. I’m definitely going to jail after this. But Jenny got what was coming to her. We could both have lived happily, but Jenny chose otherwise.
And me? I passed my degree. I have friends. And jail or not, I have a life.
Burn in hell, Jolly_Gal.

I will change names for this one.
TW: Graphic visualization, bad wording.
Warning: I am partially wheelchair bound, please keep that in mind. Its a long one. Better brew a lot of tea.
So this started 3 years ago. I (now 24,f) worked and studied in a BBW (Berufsbildungswerk). It was the school begin in summer and my class got new students.
INFO: In BBW´s you begin either in February or in mid of august. I live, study and work in one same place as 1000 students. The BBW had two onside dorms.
Amongst the new student was a special student, lets call him David (now 22,m). He was your typical macho guy, who had always strong opinions about certain topics and in the very first 3 weeks we got along well....
Well, so I´d thought. There were a lot of red flags that I didn´t notice at the time about him, that made indeed obvious how he came over to me and all the other was just a facade. He often would ask of me to bring, give and take "his" school supplies, worksheets etc. with me because his reasoning was "I don´t have a bag. I can´t carry my books and worksheets".
In other words he wanted me to be his luggage donkey....
I often would ask of him to get his stuff but he always dodged it with replies like he is getting it next week...
He told me on multiple occasions that I was someone good to talk to with...(he mostly talked while I just listened. He didn´t even let me make any comments)
Now the banger in this story was one certain tuesday that I had. It was in the morning, around a 5 minute classroom change where he asked me "Lunara, can we chill this afternoon after school? And drink some beer?".....
I didn´t reply to his question at all, because I was stressed with stuffing my schoolbag and heading to my next class. (Which is probably my fault that he took my silence and me rushing to the next class as a yes. But I digress)
Now you would think by chilling with someone you don´t know at all or barely, you would want to hangout at a place where many people are. Outside... Just not in your room necessarily, or your apartment....
Now I had earlier off from school and decided to do my laundry which was ... underwear heavy and black.... and while I was changing into something comfy the unthinkable happened...
While being half nude, David aggressively bangs on my door and opens the door without getting from me a reply back that he could come inside. Me, half nude stumbles and rushes to the door trying to shut it but David had his foot between the door and doorframe. He went aggressive on me and made a huge scene in my dormgroups hallway.
I remembered David asking the question and handed him a beer outside and asked him if he could wait a bit outside but I couldn´t finish even asking David, because he pushed the door open and I fell butt flat on the floor. I took my clothes that I wanted to change into and rushed into my bathroom.
Coming out, David sat on the ground with the beer I gave him and blasted his music box. 10 minutes passed by and he started to look around in my room. (Mind you, I do take medications. And at the time I stored my treatments in my room, in a lockable rollcontainer.)
David, overcome with curiosity started to go through my stuff on my desk. He noticed that the lockable part of my rollcontainer was locked and demanded that I need to open the rollcontainer. I said no. David got more angry and demanded it again to which I again said No.
Pissed off, David moved onto my laundry basket and went through it. He made comments like "Oh nice black lace you´ve got. What Cup-Size do you wear? I bet it looks sexy on you." It made my skin crawl and I couldn´t utter a word because I was shocked that he went through my laundry basket.
He continued on going through my bathroom, complaining that he doesn´t see many make up products? that it doesn´t look like that the bathroom is that of a woman. David continued his little journey through my pantry which had buldak noodles in it.(This is important later) He asked me if I could make a portion for him. I told him those were really spicy noodles. David told me that he is fine, since they "supposedly" aren´t that spicy and that he can´t handle that much spice. I told him that I don´t mind making him a portion but that I would start cooking soon "since I wanted to go to bed early". (I tried making a reasonable excuse as I felt immensely uncomfortable and wanted him gone as fast as I could without him getting aggressive)
He moved on from my pantry to my wardrobe, where he would make more comments on my underwear and asking me if I was taken if I ever had something....popable... with someone. If I even knew what a pp would look like... Ignoring all his questions I asked David why he would go through my stuff...
His reply you ask?
"Thats what friends do to get to know each other."
I stood there speechless. Unable to reply anything at all, I took the buldak noodles and went into the community kitchen. My caretakers asked if I was fine and assured them that I was. (Which obviously was a lie. But I also didn´t wanted them to worry or deal with David´s aggressive behavior)
INFO: When David came, the caretakers weren´t there and had a shift change.
I asked David if he wanted Cheese or stir-fried eggs in his buldak noodles to reduce the spiciness. But he declined. When I finished making his noodles he ate 3 bites before rushing to the kitchens fridge and downed a whole milk carton down. It wasn´t enough so he ran to the groups pantry room, to the fridge in that room to get butter milk.
David excused himself saying that he wasn´t feeling well. He ran out of the group like a dog running when its mealtime. My caretakers noticed it and asked me again if something happened between me and David. I shaked my head and went with mine and his portion back into my room.
Next day came...
I had P.E.classes with him and while we played badminton together with other people from different classes, David would complain to them about me. The spice level was to much for his body and he apparently sat four hours on the toilette and had to ask his roommate to bring him many bottles of buttermilk. Apparently 7 x 750ml bottles.
David would go on how he would wanna do it with me and how he liked my underwear. At the end of the P.E. lesson, people asked me if I was okay...
I was not....
I was livid, mad and filled with anger and disgust. I went that same day to my supervisor Mr.Magus and told him everything that happened... I originally wanted to let that day slide. Let what happened go...
But David crossed the line....
Actions were taken. David wasn´t allowed to come near to me, talk to me or work together with me. He wasn´t allowed to step foot into my dormgroup and everyone from our department got to know everything that happened between us...
But it didn´t ended there...
5 weeks later on a Friday, I got called in by my caretakers. In their office I see two yellow trashbags and the caretakers from the group that David was staying in.
They apologized to me and told me that today the caretakers did a room inspection on David´s room as the caretakers received complains from other groupmates staying in that group, that there was a nasty smell coming out of David´s room and found out the source of the smell.
The source was my and other women underwear that he had stolen out of our rooms. Those two bags had my underwear in it and I can´t tell you how vile it was. My underwear was covered in a white yellowish sticky gooey substance that smelled abysmal...
I tried washing them but ultimately had to throw them away.
How he got into my room you ask?
He stole from the cleaning personal a general key that opens literally any room in the dorm. He would often come when I was either sleeping or showering.
I was mad and livid. So I went petty again. I went and made a sign that said "Warning!!! I love spicy food! Hide your milk cartons away or they will be gone." printed and laminated the sign and stitched into his chair.
Next day came and all I hear are cuss words and David´s Supervisor giving David a kickout warning if he wouldn´t quiet down. David never got to know that it was me who ghost stitched on the sign on his chair. and he wasn´t able to remove it at all.
In those 3 years, I had multiple issues continuing on with David. variating from SH to sometimes AS the final straw happened 1 month ago.
I was resting in our breakroom as my migrain got worse and saw that in the breakroom, David had his stuff laying around. I knew David would at some point get his belongings and leave the room.
If he had done that he wouldn´t be banned from the BBW and wouldn´t have been demoted to homeoffice. While I laid on the couch on my side, he came inside, around the table and proceeds to slap my butt. Unable to utter a word due to the lack of mental capacity, I put my leg down and David did trip over it. He went mad and said "you b-word!!!" and punches my head. He punched so hard that my migrain got worse and a few seconds later, I got nosebleed as well.
I was in shock and feared that if I said anything rn it would make him again aggressive. So I went 2 days later to my psychologist and told her what happened.
When the class wanted to know where David was I told them what happened and the whole class went into joy. Like someone gave them a hefty raise or a good grade.
It lasted only 2 weeks due to government regulations but I will never forget the cheer Joy the class had.
Edit1:
I deep apologize if this comes over too visualizing. English is my second language and while people do tell me that I speak it well, I´m not so good on wording things. Not even in my own motherlanguage. But I assure you I am working on it.
INFO: Yes I had to go through those bags on my own and Yes the caretakers do know what my laundry/ underwear looks like as I´m physically not always able to reach the washing machine and tumble dryer and am relying on and off on a wheel chair. (both appliances are on shelves, unless I stand up and risk breaking or dispositioning my ripcage, that's how I have to get laundry done)
The caretakers do have to memorize laundry from people bound in wheel chairs or people who have a genetic issues that makes them unable to reach the appliances due to height issue.
They do check up on us asking standard questions if we got new clothes or items with us. New electronic items or even amenities we do have to list to them.

I asked the local building department about adding an EVSE and was told that a load calculation would be required. I asked if the city had a specific form, but was told that any pertinent one would work.
My state (MN) has adopted the 2023 NEC. I believe for my purposes (single family, looking to add a load), I am looking for 2023 NEC Section 220.83.
I have a 100A main circuit breaker on the panel (complete list of breakers listed below).
There is an existing 40A double pole breaker that is abandoned as the range has been converted to gas.
Heat is gas.
Hot water is gas.
Only potentially large loads are electric dryer and air conditioning.

Worksheet following 220.83

Part 1: General lighting/receptacle

• 4500 VA = 1500 Sq ft * 3 VA/sq ft

Part 2: Small appliance (2) + Laundry circuits (1)

• 4500 VA = 2 * 1500 + 1 * 3000

Part 3: Nameplate Rating list:

Device	VA
Washer	1200
Water softener	13.5
Range	432
Radon mitigation	84
Fridge	720
Microwave	1550
Garbage disposal	540
Dishwasher	1200
sump pump	1164
Bathroom fan	540
Garage opener	360
HVAC	3360
Laundry Dryer	6240
EV Charger	7680

Calculations:

Calculations	VA
Total Load (before demand factor):	32883.5
First 8 KW @ 100%	8000
Remainder at 40% (32883.5-8000)	9953.4
Total Load (8000+9953.4)	17953.4
Amperage (21793.4/240)	74.8 A

Panel:

Label	Breaker Amp
Abandoned Range, convert to EVSE (double pole)	40
dryer (double pole)	30
ac (double pole)	30
microwave/fridge	20
furnace	20
Basement bathroom	20
basement outlet	20
garage outlets	20
wash/dryer	20
basement utility lights	20
garbage disposal / dishwasher	20
water softner, Range, radon	15
kitchen outlet	20
kitchen outlet	20
exterior deck	15

Questions:

• I included Washer as an appliance. But it runs off of the 1x Laundry circuit (not separate circuit). I should remove the laundry washer from the appliance list for load calculations (part 3) as it is already accounted for in the 1500 VA laundry circuit?
• Sump pump is also plugged into the laundry circuit. Does this mean it should also be removed from the appliance list for load calculations (part 3) as it is already accounted for in the 1500 VA laundry circuit?
• EVSE, dryer, and A/C all receive the 40% demand factor in my calculations. This is how I understand 220.83, but I want to make sure.
• Anything else I messed up here?

It seems like all the kids do on a daily basis is either roam around the farm, or swarm the kitchen, shouting. How often do they go to that lovely, large “classroom building” to have any actual lessons with the local teacher we’ve been told comes to teach them? Or are the images of them flopped around reading in there, or the few times one of them will be shown doing a worksheet at the kitchen table, simply performative photos/videos for Hannah to post? Maybe they just rely on learning things from their parents as they follow them around, like how to properly care for the farm animals, or how far below sea level they are…

I (29M) am not sure how I feel about being married to my wife (31F) anymore. We've been together for at least 6 years and I'm not sure if I want to do this anymore. Here are some of the things that I've been going through:
I started my first year as a special education teacher this year. I knew based on student teaching that I was going to be very busy with work. I tried to facilitate a discussion with my wife about her taking on a fair share of the cooking or that if we could consider a meal service of some kind to cut down on the time it would take for me to make dinner. I make dinner every night and I anticipated it being hard to balance work, a 1 hour commute, and all the other take-home work I would need to do. I even had my therapist help me discuss this with her. When we were in her office she seemed open to the idea of at least looking into a meal service. Then we walked out and she basically said "we're not doing that". I remember thinking about how I'll do all the cooking and planning for dinner like always on top of all this extra work I'd be starting.
My wife has cooked me one meal that wasn't a frozen pizza in the time we've lived together. On top of this, my wife has had to go through two very specific diets for medical reasons. Both times I had more knowledge on what she could or couldn't have and I had to cook to accommodate her. She's going through one of these diets currently, and she seems to just let me worry about the cooking. There are days where she is home hours before me and she has no idea what she wants to eat or nothing cooking despite the fact that I won't be able to start cooking until about 6pm.
My wife has gotten to the point where are assumes I'm making every meal for her. She expected me to make her lunch and her dinner tonight and prep vegetables for her lunches later this week. I made her dinner and these vegetables for her tonight. She came home to dinner and food prepared for the next day. I asked if she could grab me a drink from the fridge right as I say down on our couch. She said "you should've thought about that before you sat down". I had to go get it myself after that.
My wife is a backseat driver and it drives be crazy. She drives all day at work so if we go out anywhere I have to drive. I just wait until she makes some kind of remark or tells me to slow down because a car is braking while I've been braking before she said anything. If any of my friends drives us and she doesn't like the way they drove I get to hear the play by play of what they did wrong on our way back home. It will likely not be the only time she will harp on it either. Which leads me to the next thing.
My wife constantly repeats things over and over and over again. She'll gladly give me the whole run down on why she's mad at someone every time they're mentioned in a conversation. Most of the time it's done with my family. My brother had a bad breakup with an ex where he cheated because their relationship was falling apart. Not the best move on his part and I felt bad for his ex. However, for months after we learned about what he did my wife could not resist mentioning how she was mad at him for what he did at the mention of my brother's name. She would go off on this tangent even when he was brought up in a way that wasn't related to the breakup.
My wife also has a lot of words that I just find as filler that make listening to her speak challenging. I find myself wincing every time I hear her overused words or phrases such as "like", "you know", "granted sure", and "not for nothing". If I had to guess, her average "likes" per sentence must be at least 6.
I feel like she's always saying I'm being "mean" to her when I give the impression I may not want to do something she's asked. She asked me to do all these things in our kitchen she could've had done for herself before I got home and I just stared at her. She didn't understand why I gave her the look I did but I was apparently being mean to her. Any time I'm frustrated with her I'm somehow being mean to the point where I feel like I'm not allowed to feel any sense of frustration with her without her claiming "you're mean". It almost feels manipulative that I'm mean because I don't want to do something for her. Meanwhile, it's ok that she can say "fuck you, you're mean. I'm not talking to you".
I'll admit I get short with her sometimes. I feel like I'm losing my patience with her more because she gets to sit at home all day and do nothing. She gets to relax on the couch for hours while I'm cooking, grading, planning, etc after work. I'll be lesson planning and my mental break from working on them is making her dinner.
She also wants to go on this expensive vacation that I feel isn't being budgeted well in terms of our time. We have a short window to finish paying off a lot of money to a travel agency and I'm not sure how that's going to all turn out. This isn't the first time we went on a poorly planned vacation where I was basically told to just go with it and had a hard time paying off my credit cards after the trip and bookings. I get the feeling this will continue to be a stressor in my life and this relationship
The last big thing is that I feel I no longer want to have kids with my wife. I still want to have kids, but I'm leaning towards not wanting to have them with her. A lot of that is because of what I've described above.
I've discussed my feelings about this with my therapist. I've also told them that if I was to separate from my wife I'd basically have no where to go. Rent is too high by myself, I can't move in with family as they all live out of state, none of my friends have space for a roommates, and so on. So I'm not really sure what's the best thing to do. I'm fortunate to have a home and my job. I just don't know what to do. I don't really think my wife will change since I've tried to get in front of an issue and nothing was done about it. I just know that I may get moved into a different grade to teach which means all the planning, prepping, creating worksheets, slideshows, etc of the first year will be repeated all over again. I'm really not sure if I could do another year of this relationship if next school year goes the same way this one has.
TLDR: I feel my wife isn't feeling me mitigate stress by contributing to our relationship, among other things, and I feel my options are limited

I have dropped a day at school due to stress so have picked up some home tutoring in science to help pay the bills. My first ever tutoring role is for a bright, capable and really nice student in year 8. His parents seem to really just want him to not be put off science at school and they want homework set. I’m new to tutoring (and less than 2 years in to teaching) so I’m just looking for ideas on what to do with him during our one hour weekly sessions. We did some revision in our first session but I’m wondering if others in similar situations have ideas. Do you ever do homeschool type hands on experiments? - so many opportunities for “kitchen science “ but is this practical? Or do you stick to textbooks and worksheets? Thanks for any ideas.

I'm building a commercial kitchen and trying my very best to limit gas use. A part of the process is specifying a water heater based on proposed equipment and sinks. I understand reheating time for heat pumps is slower than gas or electric resistance, but if there is anyone out there that could recommend something around 200gal/hr, I'd be in your debt.
Right now the worksheet is specifying 110 BTU/hr or 25 kW for tank or 47 gal/min for tankless.

already submitted application but posting bc i wanna know if i should apply to more safeties/programs. italic text is what i included/suggested in SIP app bc I started it after apps.
i'm sure i got rejected from ssp, mostly sure from sip.... i dont hv great stats bc lack of opportunities (mentioned in my apps). plz also lmk if u hv program reccs, i wanna major in biochem/microbio/neurobio. feel free to pm
*grading scale: 1-8, IB MYP
General:

• High-income mixed east asian
• Sophomore IB International student. rather small school
• orphan - mom has neuro condition i related to in my essays -- incapacitated, dad is deceased. i live alone (fam lives in mom's home country, financially supports me) so a lot of responsibilities.
• GPA: school doesn't provide
• Applied to SSP genomics, SIP molecular and macrobio, 3rd chose other biochem programs. Met all prereqs

Academics:

• Middle school: mostly got all final 7s, criterion grades were 7-8. courses: science, math, english, german, chinese (2 years mandatory), arts (rotated music visual arts and design), i&s
• G9: all final 7s, criterion grades 7-8. . courses: science (rotational bio chem phys), standard math, english, german, design, i&s
• G10: two final 6s in extended math and english (both by one point), rest all 7s. courses: extended math, science (rotational bio chem phys), english, german, design, i&s.
• Planning to take DP HL bio chem psych, SL math aa english LL german b.
• Courses

-brown uni precollege 2 week program on epidemiology
-bad 1 week on medicine - did dissection labs though
-took a math tutoring course to learn calculus and dp math in g9 spring. math teacher vouched for this in letter of recs
Awards/Competitions (ongoing/only highschool, won a lot in ms lol):

1. global essay comp— 1st place winner, wrote the application of CRISPR-Cas9 technology on neurodegenerative conditions. won 1k and scholarship to bad medicine program (did lab work tho)
2. rather huge science and math comp in all of asia, first place in high school science presentation. Presented about Viruses in Therapeutic Treatments and Biotechnologies.
3. highest gpa in grade - won in 2020, 2021, 2023 (was close in 2022 but was burnt out coz dad died)
4. honor roll (gpa of final grade 6+ out of 7) 2020-2023
5. distinguished student (1 per grade) for service 2022 and 2023, service was for public health and soup kitchen respectively
6. distinguished student (2-4 per grade) for english 2022 and 2023
7. distinguished student (3 per grade) for science 2023 -- specifically for lab work/extended work

Competitions I didn't place (first) in:

1. MUN conferences - did a few national ones and got honorable mentions (2nd/3rd place)
2. science olympiads - got through 1st (1/2) rounds in an international bio one, only won 3rd in a national one--- for team building unrelated to biochem.
3. engineering comp - didn't place twice but the technologies i made for these were first of its kind

Extra-currciculars:
STEM

1. medical club at my school educational school wide impact stuff
2. science olympiad club
3. upcoming leadership in a science honor society (schools first)
4. red cross youth vp -> recent

Non-STEM

1. mun club pres, tutored dozens of kids, attented a lot of confs, managed national one
2. school debate team. competes at nationals - havent yet coz i dont have time, didnt mention this
3. 2 volunteering groups: cat shelter n soup kitchen (pres of)
4. amnesty int club vp - collab w doctors w/o borders and association for women here
5. club oversight team - upcoming pres , board member currently. organized school wide events. expanding into intl ones

Volunteering/Service:

• dementia/elderly home 2h whenever i can (on saturdays)
• soup kitchen 3h monthly
• tutoring 1h+ weekly
• made educational stuff on virology/microbio for myp personal project. more than a dozen models/worksheets etc donated to teachers n schools from diff countries
• orphan initiative ongoing, planning to do a very wide scale city thing.
• did initiative on homelessness where i am, thus soup kitchen volunteering
• cant work coz of age & im not fluent in the language where i live.

Application Info:
SIP: recc letter from school uni counselor, she did a cumulative assessment of my bio chem phys and math. essays were okay, i'd say i didn't talk enough about my interest in genomics.
SSP: recc letter from bio, chem, math. did not take physics at this point. essays were good, i didnt get to fit all of my academic stuff

This is the writeup I wish I had found as I was planning my wedding. I got married last september and I finally have enough bandwidth to do a writeup of how it went and lessons learned. I hope I never get married again, so these lessons would be wasted if I did not share them. I was never a person who spent much time imagining weddings but I have spent many years in the concert and event industry so I know the details that matter to making an event run smoothly (and they’re the boring stuff like bathrooms and trash cans and electrical cords and timelines). I’m pretty organized and was also not willing to shell out for a wedding planner so we tackled this thing ourselves.
And! I’m thrilled we had a wedding and that it was such a good one. I loved having our people all together for a weekend and it was worth it.Side note: I hated the bullshit marketing and expectations placed on being “a bride.” Planning a wedding is a chore and I can’t say how annoying it was to have all of my internet algorithms suggesting shapewear and weight loss scams to me for the whole wedding year. Fuck right off with that. Getting married was a joy but planning a wedding sucked and it was worth it anyway. But I’m never doing it again. I prioritized keeping my sanity through the whole process and it was still a lot of work.
Philosophy:
My partner and I are both pretty practical people and have fortunately sane families so it was up to us how we wanted to plan this thing. We read parts of A Practical Wedding by Megan Keene and it recommended choosing your top three most important things and focusing on those. The book also recommended a “vibe mission statement” . So we decided that ours were.

1. A Good Ceremony
2. Invite all our people
3. A Good photographer (we’re both such grubby outdoor people that we’re wearing helmets and sunglasses in every single photo of us and we wanted good photos of our one day dressed up)

And our vibe we wanted was “joyful, comfortable lawn party.” I imagined a big barefoot hobbit type party with trees and lights and comfy skirts.
These priorities made it SO much easier to disregard the shit that we did NOT care about. ‘Cause there was a LOT of that.
We did pay for several services that could have been done cheaper, but for me it was worth it to hire professionals so that I wouldn’t have to be event managing while I was trying to get married. I downloaded the wedding planning spreadsheets from a practical wedding and used those, but any would do fine. I mostly used them to keep track of budgets and payment deadlines.
I’ll break the planning down into categories in no particular order and sum it up at the end. Budgets are rough guesses. We’re in a medium-high COL location and we tried to balance budget considerations with subbing things out to keep us sane/help us enjoy the day.
Venue $5,800
Our venue was the most impactful choice we made and we absolutely loved ours. We wanted to stay local and to have a low-key vibe. We had originally put down a deposit for a local cider brewery, but we realized that it had no trees and too industrial of a vibe. Plus it would have been a sunny hell on a summer afternoon and needed us to bring tents and chairs and bleh. So we toured a local farm that met all of our criteria:
-Trees and Nature and outdoor spaces
-An indoor space in case of rain (fuck dealing with tents)
-Allowed 125 people (many farms had lower guest caps
-Allowed us to bring our own food/alcohol
-Close to home
It was stunningly beautiful and comfortable and had plenty of room for our guests to roam the property. We are all outdoorsy people so a farm was our happy place for us and our guests. The sunset was stunning and the wild grasses and flowers growing all over were just heaven. It had a few rules about quiet music and early ending times, but we didn’t mind at all. It was only 20 minutes from our house which saved a lot of hassle and hotel room complications. I would have hated having to drive more than an hour to our venue.
Timeline:
We got engaged in November, had a venue picked by January and a photographer by February and got married in September. It was fast but doable. My partner had said “well, no point wasting any time, we got engaged, let’s get married!” And I’m glad we did. Honestly, wedding planning sucked and making it last longer would not have made it better.
The day-of timeline was hard to piece together and our photographer and lead caterewaitstaff helped build it. The wedding was 3-9 pm and it was the right length for us.
HMU: 9-12
Get ready at venue: 1-2 (it was chaos)
2-3 First look photos
3:15-3:45 ceremony
3:45-4:15 Big family pictures
10 minute break by ourselves for snacks(this was SO nice)
3:45-5:15 Social hour with lawn games and bar burros for guests
5:30-7 ish Dinner, speeches, first dance
7-9 Dancing/playing outside by the fire pit
8? Cake
Ceremony/Officiant $1000 and so worth it
We are fortunate to have a close long term friend who is a unitarian universalist minister. Her wedding was the first one I had ever gone to that had memorable, AMAZING vows and so I asked her if she’d officiate and we were lucky she said yes. Local officiants were asking for 800-1000 for their time and so I offered to pay for her and her families flights out here plus some. This is her profession after all and she deserves to be paid for her training. We are not religious and we wanted joyful, genuine vows. We had been to some weddings with traditional vows or jokey casual vows and those were not for us.
She did 3-4 meetings with us before the wedding and sent us a questionnaire to help her write the ceremony. She also sent us a worksheet that helped us write our own vows.
She broke the ceremony down into parts. The opening greeting and centering, a community blessing for the audience to declare their support for us, a union ritual (flowers, I’ll explain later), the address explaining our story and philosophies, the vows , the ring exchange, and the recession.
Everyone cried, it was a great ceremony and easily my favorite part of the day. It was wonderful. I have our vows printed over a wedding picture on our wall.
Flowers and Flower Ceremony: maybe $100 in supplies and lots of gardening
This was one of our absolute favorite parts. We decided to gamble and grow our own flowers. We decided ahead of time that we were totally okay if it failed. Our goal was to grow enough for just our bouquets and if the garden didn’t work, we would go to trader joes instead. So we planted 150 sf of our garden with dahlias, gladiolus, cosmos and daisies. We got really lucky that they bloomed at the right time. The dahlias are an ongoing bloomer but glads are boom and bust and we just got lucky is all. I did stagger planting some of the glads by a few weeks as insurance which worked. I had done a lot of research and chose flowers that would bloom in early september ish.
For our union ceremony, instead of lighting a candle or combining sand, we chose to do a flower ceremony. My husband and I walked into the ceremony with our own bouquets made of a single flower type (pink dahlias for me, yellow dahlias for him) and we asked our wedding parties and parents to bring or choose a type of flower to contribute to our combined bouquets. So we had 2 vases set up at the altar. We put some pink and some yellow dahlias into each and then one by one, our people came up and put in their flower along with what it symbolized (daisies for a late grandfather, cosmos for flexibility, wild grass for tenacity, etc) and one of my bridesmaids arranged the mix into two stunning new bouquets and our celebrant bound them together with ribbon to symbolize our combining of families. This was my FAVORITE decision we made. I loved my finished bouquet so much and my husband loved his too. Men should get flowers more often, he looks so handsome in all our photos beaming and holding his flowers.
Website Free
We chose Zola because it had digital save the dates (we did pay for paper invitations) and it allowed cash funds and odd items from other websites on our registry. We did not need standard kitchen stuff, so we had things like power tools and outdoor gear instead.
Guests/Invites: $150ish
It was our priority to invite all of our people, community is important to us and it was such a joy to have all of our favorite people in one room. We had a 125 person limit at the venue and we invited 175 ish. We ended up with 121 people or so. We cut it a little close and it worked out fine. The vast majority of our families are local so they all came, most of the folks who did not come were honorary invites to older relatives out of town.
We did digital save the dates with a small handful printed at walgreens for non email people. Many save the dates got caught in spam filters. We printed paper invites through zola and it was nice to have the envelopes pre addressed. We also enclosed an empty recipe card with each invite and asked our guests to give us recipes. We got maybe 20% of them back. It was a fun idea. Some invites were slow or stuck in the mail, so I did end up sending out maybe 10 replacement ones. We had our RSVP deadline a month before the wedding so we had time to hunt down the nonresponsive folks with plenty of time before our 2 week catering deadline.
Food $2,200
Waitstaff and rentals $3,400
Bar $1200ish
Cake $200
Our venue allowed us to supply our own food/alcohol as long as we hired a waitstaff or full service caterer. Full service catering quotes were in the 15K and fancy food was not our priority. So we ordered chipotle catering and hired a lovely local company that provided waitstaff to move chairs and handle food/trash/ logistics/etc. The owner of this company was wonderful and coordinated everything from timeline to location of tables to making sure we had snacks in our dressing rooms after the ceremony. She also handled plate and tablecloth rentals. My mother’s only demand in the whole wedding was real forks, so fine, we paid for rental plates and silverware. This was the best arrangement for us, the food was delicious and easy and super darn affordable for as many people as we had.
For liquor, we bought wine at costco and ordered beer and ice delivery from a local liquor store. They accepted returns of unopened cases after the wedding. We had 2 simple cocktails at social hour which was the only hard liquor the venue allowed and it was fine. We also had tea and lemonade in dispensers.
We got our cake from a local bakery, we just did sheet cake and a small cutting cake. I almost ordered this at costco, but the local place had super delicious cakes. Our friends picked it up for us.
Photographer $4,000
I started by searching for photos of past weddings at my venue. That helped me find photographers who already understood the vibe I wanted (joyful, outdoor) and it helped me scope out their styles ahead of time to sift out what I did not want (posed, stuffy, heavily filtered). I found a photographer who was funny and put us at ease and who did not speak to me like I was some frilly tik tok “girlie”. I have to hang out with this person for my whole wedding day and I had to find someone I liked enough to spend a day with. She also shared some full wedding galleries which I appreciated so I could see how her photos looked at candid moments, indoors and outdoors. Most photographers only show their highlights which anyone can do well. I asked to add a delivery date for photos in the contract and she delivered right on time since it was so clearly in writing. We also added a second photographer for 3 hours for the getting ready, ceremony and family photos which helped them all happen faster.
I wrote out a detailed family shot list for her and mentioned certain photos that were high priority for me. Critical photos for me were with my grandma, a wide landscape shot to hang on my wall and a single simple straight on shot for our thank you notes. I was glad we put this together ahead of time so we didn’t waste time on the day to try to improvise boring family shots. She got through the posed ones in 30 mins or less which I appreciated. Prioritize the photos you’ll really cherish over the obligatory massive family posed pictures. I wish I had more pictures of just my mom, sister and I but we were so busy that we only have a few.
Day of coordinator $750
She was recommended by the venue and had worked there before. Her duties overlapped some with the catering staff. I hired her so I would not have to do any event managing during the day and she handled things smoothly. I have no idea what exactly she did all day which is perfect! She brought us drinks, fetched missing boutonnieres and handled boring hiccups and I never had to get involved, so it was well worth it.
Clothing: Total probably $2000ish
My husband got his suit made at indochino in green which looked great.
I tried maybe 4 dress shops before I found a used dress at a local bridal consignment store. I liked the consignment store because it offered unique dresses that were different from the trends of the year. That said, I was totally wrong about what I thought I wanted (classic, clean, no deep v, structured, no train) and I ended up getting a stunning sparkly dress with a deep v that fit well right off the rack and it was stretchy! Turns out I was just waiting for a comfortable dress. And I surprised myself that I loved the fabric pattern so much that I kept the train. I opted for both a wrist loop and simple bustle. The wrist loop was elegant and made pre-wedding pictures easy. Having a cheaper, pre-used dress helped me enjoy the day more because I gave myself permission not to baby the dress. So I tromped through grass fields and petted farm animals and carried toddlers around and I had such a blast. And I used good lines boob tape which worked really nicely. I practiced with it several times before the wedding which was important. And I wore comfy shorts under my dress. No chafing and no squeezing was important to me.
I way overthought jewelry but I loved the back necklace I found on etsy, it looked stunning with my low back dress. And I made a day of decision to keep my tiny bee stud earrings in. I wear them every day and I love that they’re my wedding earrings now. I also got gel nails done the week of the wedding and it was fun to still have my wedding nails for weeks after the wedding.Oh! And I wore comfy, cute red leather ankle boots with a 1” heel. Hardly anyone could see them PLUS I get to wear my wedding shoes all the time now. They were comfy af and let me run free.
The only real craft project I did for the wedding was to make bouttonieres for the men in the family. I had a loose dandelion theme (wishes and all) and I made yarn poofballs in dandelion colors. They looked great and never wilted.
Wedding Party
We each chose 3-4 of our closest people for our wedding party. I asked the ladies to wear anything they wanted in green, blue or purple. And then men ended up wearing whatever suit jackets they already owned. I didn’t care at all about matching dresses and I’m glad I avoided the hassle and expense of it.
HMUA maybe $800 for me plus 3?
I found a local hair salon that would do hairstyles and a makeup artist who would come to the salon. I offered to pay for my 3 bridesladies if they wanted to join. It was expensive but it was nice to have a really chill quiet morning before the chaos of the wedding started. I did do a trial with both hair and makeup which I’m glad I did because I edited a few things. I am blonde and relatively fair and the makeup artist ordered brown false lashes for me which looked so much more natural.
Bar Burros $700
This was our one ridiculous silly splurge. We hired 2 bar burros to distribute drinks and bubbles for kids during social hour. They wore flowers and our guests totally loved them. It was silly and we loved it. It loosened everyone up and set a fun mood for the rest of the wedding.
Dancing Lessons $400ish
We took some dance lessons at a local studio and they helped us choreograph a dance to “House of my Soul” by Langhorne Slim which is maybe the best wedding song I’ve ever heard. These dancing dates were one of our favorite parts of wedding planning and helped us remember to have fun. It was so worth the money.
Music $1200
The venue had a list of recommended DJs who knew the decibel limit rules. I told the DJ the vibes we wanted and which genres to avoid and he was lovely. Our families aren’t huge dancers so the poor guy ended up playing music to a pretty empty room while we all watched the sunset but it was not his fault at all. It was worth having him instead of an ipod since he had all his own gear and he could queue things during the ceremony.
We walked down the aisle to a cover of “This must be the place” by Kishi Bashi. It made me cry the first time I listened to it and I could not have found a more perfect procession song. Our recession song was “All I want is You” by Barry Louis Polisar.
Rings $2300 total
My husband had proposed to me using my grandmother’s gold wedding band which happened to fit me perfectly and it was so special to me. I had a local jewelry shop drill in a tiny tiny flush set diamond to make it my own. They did it for $50 and I love it.
We both work a lot with our hands and appreciate craftsmanship. A prong set ring is not my style at all. We found a local jewelry maker who made us matching oxidized damascus steel wedding rings. Mine has some scattered flush set diamonds and his has a narrow gold ribbon to match my engagement band. . They’re stunning and unique and we’ll love them forever.
Other events
We did a welcome event on friday night at a local brewery and a bagel brunch at a park shelter the next morning. I’m so glad we did these so we could spend more time with our people outside of the wedding itself. We were fortunate that our parents offered to handle the food for these. Plus we were able to serve/distribute wedding leftovers and the sunday brunch.
I did have a casual bachelorette weekend at a cabin on a lake about 6 weeks before the wedding. We read books and canoed and wore cute overalls. It was lovely.
Prenup $2,500ish
This is rarely talked about, but it counts as a wedding expense. We’re practical people, we have no intention of getting divorced but things happen. We each had some assets coming into marriage and we already owned a house together but had no legal agreement about it. It’s important that this is complete at least a month ahead of the wedding for enforceability. It covers things like how joint money is and is not used, how inheritances will work and considerations about catastrophic or end of life decisions. The overall process maybe took 6-8 weeks because lawyers are busy people and prenups are not emergencies. It was boring and a chore but it got done and we moved along.
Name change $500?
We chose to take one syllable from each of our names and combine them rather than hyphenate. Imagine he was Sonson and I was smith. We combined to Smithson. What we didn’t realize is that legally its easy and free to hyphenate OR take the husbands name. But since we smushed into a new name we needed a court order before social security would change our names. This involved fingerprints, background checks and a bunch of paperwork. It was a pain, we’re hoping that all the name change admin is done by our first anniversary. It was important to us to share a name in an equitable way so it will be worth it but it was a pain.
MiscBubble favors for send off, , smores, lawn games, fans, seating chart
I used the local “recycled wedding” facebook group to source things like a card box and seating chart, buying them new is a ripoff and no one needs them for more than a day anyway. I paid maybe $100 for miscellaneous wedding junk and made almost all of it back when I sold it after the wedding.
Honeymoon: $5000
The honeymoon is what I’ve dreamed about since I was a kid and it was so important to me. AND it would have been impossible for me to plan it and a wedding at the same time. So we did a micro-moon for two nights in a mountain cabin near home the day after the wedding and we waited 6 months or so and then took a 3 week trip to Japan. I’m so glad we waited. I had time to plan and had enough bandwidth to enjoy it fully. We felt so weird and exhausted after the wedding and I’m glad we only had to go an hour away to chill.
Overall Conclusions:
It was fun and so worth it. Time FLEW. I felt like I was on a strange time conveyor belt for our whole wedding weekend and I couldn’t stop it. I held onto my husband's hand and slowed down at every opportunity to breath and look around. Having our people with us in a beautiful place was an almost otherworldly experience and nothing like it will probably happen again. It was blissful and happy. We were able to do the hard work and logistics ahead of time and by the time the wedding came, we accepted that the work was done and that whatever happened was okay. That was critical. Weddings are chaos and tapping into some major acceptance helped us not worry on the day. It was perfect and messy and a joy.

I remember it was hard to find reviews of this so I'm throwing mine out from the other side.
Taught by: Peter Kitchener and Ger Post
Formal prerequisites: NEUR30002/30003. I don't think they're necessary at all though.
Contact hours: 1 hour lecture/seminar, 1 hour workshop, 1 hour tutorial per week.
Textbook: https://github.com/harshitkgupta/StudyMaterial/blob/masteMake%20Your%20Own%20Neural%20Network%20(Tariq%20Rashid)%20-%20%7BCHB%20Books%7D.pdf
Assessment: 4x fortnightly take home 5% worksheets (called "quizzes"), 1x 20% take home MST (like a mega worksheet), 1x 60% 3000 word equivalent project/report on a self chosen topic.
Grade: 95. WAM was 81.
Neural network stuff: Watch this playlist.
Programming knowledge required: All the programming you need is in page 107-140ish of the textbook, which is very little. Don't shy away from this if you have no experience, but it's obviously in your best interests to get some.
I went into this with about 6 hours of online python courses (I got it for free with a coupon). Do those 30 pages of the textbook, or the first 2 hours of any basic python intro, like this, and you'll be fine. I think the programming teaching was too piecemeal, and you really should do bigger chunks of it so it feels more connected and you can see a bigger picture.
Maths knowledge required: basic understanding of matrices is all that's really needed. Any more advanced ML relevant maths might be useable in your final project, but isn't necessary.
Neural network and data: https://github.com/makeyourownneuralnetwork/makeyourownneuralnetwork.
My experience: This is a basic programming subject with neuroscience flavour. Since there's no strictly examinable stuff, I didn't try to take notes much and just listened, which felt like I learned more. The workshops were mostly for getting programming help from what I heard (I didn't go to any). All the worksheets were pretty simple, but my final project was time consuming. This was my first taste of programming and I liked so much that I ended up a software engineer.
Go through all the linked resources in this post during midsem break and you're set to chill for the semester.

The thrust of my question is when people would tend to recommend moving over to Access or a database. I'm asking here as my primary familiarity is with Excel (have some incentive to do as much as I can there). I'm familiar with Power Query and understand some basics of the Data Model in Power Pivot so it seems a fair amount could be managed within Excel.
Essentially I am looking to track a details about Hospitals (from the insurance companies perspective). Ultimately that means the basic information about the Hospital themselves (Name, Address, Tax Identifier) but also more variable information about their Health System affiliations and keeping track of new Contracts with new financial agreements / payment rates.
HealthSystem Hospitals Contracts Rates (would need some history tables to track changes, too)
None of this will require a large volume of data (tracking less than 100 hospitals). But it will require coordination with more than a handful of tables to keep track of changing affiliations and rates over time. As I am playing around I have a workbook with several worksheets each representing a table and then added to the Data Model.
Then I poke around in MS Access and some of the basic data integrity functions seems better for this scenario. Having multi-field relationships between tables, formal primary key designations, query builder, etc. Perhaps all this can be replicated with Power Query merges and appends and grouping?
At this point this doesn't need to be some multi-user form-based dynamic "application". I'm the only cook in the kitchen and I just need to be able to serve up some simple summary reports for the higher ups.
Am I massively oveunder-thinking this? Do folks have examples of managing moderately complex data models in Power Pivot?