I dont want tuneup to start up every time i open itunes

I installed and reinstalled SMAPI multiple times but every time; the 'SMAPI Stardew Valley' App crashes on start-up, I didn't add any mods yet. The app just opens white screen for 2 seconds and crashes!! I don't know what to do or if there is a fix for that. If there's no current fix, can I load mods using any other program?

A, B, C and D.
I want to start with the one I want to kill or beat up the most: A. He is a pro football player, and that's kind of where the problem begins. When we were in the same class my whole life, he always yelled at me whenever we played football, ever since elementary school. He is also (for some reason) the highlight of the class, like for every single girl. He even had his first kiss under a desk in kindergarten. Not that I have a problem with that; the girls are all his, I don't even want a girlfriend. But what I don't get is how every single girl STILL likes and praises him despite him always humiliating, teasing, and sometimes even hitting some of them, yet none of those girls can even stand sitting next to me (especially B, but I'll get to her later). It's like it has become a standard for every girl to not like me. They say they don't hate me and I'm just being dramatic, but I'm pretty sure of the truth; most of them dislike me, don't even respect me. Anyways, back to A. Its almost a part of his daily life to make fun of me or swearing at me. All i did was wear a lumberjack shirt on top of my school uniform and he still sweared at me about it. (Something like ''fuck your clothing'' as the google translate says) he occasinally pushes me out of the way, my fatass ''friend'' pushed me so i leaned against a side to avoid hitting his GF (not that i care that she is his girlfriend) and he still yelled something like ''stay away'' like some fucking dog protecting his mate. He always cuts me off when i ask something to the teacher and almost the whole class joins him like some hiveimind. The girls are so OK with him he always had girls following him like some kind of animal's harem before he had a GF ,they even made fun of THE WAY I THOUGHT(like,my hand was on my chin.), i also call the ones on his tails whores. My hate for him is so strong i get past kill/torture him, i sometimes want to push him to the ground and r@pe him so i can give him a trauma that he will never forget, ruining his life and maybe even suiciding if im lucky (or unlucky). Im trying not to give in,but if i ever did something like that and if someone asked if i regret it,i would probably say ''i would do it again if i had they gave me the chance to go to the past''. Everytime i see him walking down stairs,i want to kick his back,slam his head against the wall until his face bled. İ want to put him down on his knees and hold him by his hair on the streetcar rails,because that way,i would both suicide and also kill him,it would be pure bliss for a few seconds. But i get sad every time i remember that murder is obviously illegal,and it wouldnt be worth burning my life...i also think about if its actually worth it cause, i dont have much dreams,i want to be a simple cashier,not much would change the world if i died,but if i killed him or he died in some way,i would be eternally happy. He is probably one of the,if not the worst, of this list of people,i wanna strangle him to death.
Now for B, she has blue hair and trains in muay thai, she even joins tournaments, but she is half my height and weight, im pretty sure i could beat her up,but i dont want to let my ego get in the way. Anyways now for why i hate her. She is fucking annoying. She ALSO cuts my sentences to make fun of me, she would never sit down with me, she calls me weird, she mentions that has nothing to do with the topic while arguing with me, like the time she made fun of the pose i made for the school album where all the boys are in a single pic.(The pose was me leaning one one of my waist while putting my hand on the opposite side o fmy waist while doing the peace sign, which,sure,its funny,but not an excuse to make fun of me) I always regret the time when she punched my stomach and ran away to her desk. All i did was just raise my leg and slowly ''stomp'' her on the chest,which only just leaved a print of dust on her. If i could go to past,i would definetly beat the shit out of her. She also almost punched me just because i called her adolescent (everyone calls her that btw,she tried to hit JUST me) but i thankfully caught her fist in the air. The teacher of course warned her,but im sure as hell they wouldnt *just* warn me if i hit her,its just general teacher treatment. Anyways long story short,i hate her as much as A,if somehow not more. The things i wanna do to her are the same as A, torture,murder,beating up and rarely even r@pe blah blah.
Now C. He is...a bit egoistic, he will point and laugh at me, but uses force even if i call him a nickname everyone calls him. He even threatened me in elemantary school to join him in being naughty. The intimading about him is well,he is pretty muscly and also grew up in a bit of dangerous streets. He is usually cool but he is one of the people who always keep up with the making fun of me everytime i get a random boner trend (everyone in this list,except B keeps this up btw). Overall i still wanna kill him etc etc, the same.
D. D is...also loved by everyone but me.He also makes fun of me, like saying they will beat me up in highschool for random fucking reasons thats none of his business (Dumb shit like me liking old things btw). I think he is probably the weakest out of this bunch (or maybe B, idk). He studies all day (his mom kinda forces him to) but that doesnt justify his actions like slapping my cheeks (both kind of cheeks,yes). He is also weirdly handsome and kind of a soft. The same thing goes for him too. Murder, beating up, torture, r@pe etc.
Anyways,long story short,these are people that i wouldnt be sad at if they died or got hurt. Also the people who i would love to hurt if it was legal. But, yknow, my hate for A,or any of these people, teaches me something. No matter how much of an asshole you are, no matter what you do,if you are popular for a good reason, you will always be the one winning, its just the way society works. And honestly,classmates like these make me understand some school shooters and why they do it, of course, im not saying its justifyed at all, its one of the stupidest things to do,but i kinda have those thoughts too. Last words: I hope every one of these people i counted above a very unpleasent life and death,they ruined the most active moments of my life,puberty,and further boosted my sadness and p*rn addiction.

Hey everyone, I'm 17 years old and feeling really overwhelmed, so I'm writing this to get it all out and seek some help. Maybe some of you can say something to help me feel less alone.
I feel way behind people my age career-wise because of my immaturity and not listening to my family. I feel like I'm at my breaking point, so here it goes:
I was never particularly good at academics or anything else. I enjoyed playing different sports but was just average at all of them. In 10th grade, I studied for the last 3-4 weeks and scored good enough marks to get into the science stream.
I chose PCM (Physics, Chemistry, and Math) because I wanted to join the NDA and become an officer. It was a dream I never worked towards, and now I realize how unrealistic it was. In 11th grade, I was in a relationship and wasted a lot of time on that and other distractions. I didn’t have any friends except my boyfriend. I thought I could score decent marks by studying in the last few weeks like I did in 10th grade, but it didn’t work, and I failed.
Then my boyfriend suggested we break up to focus on our studies. It hurt a little, but I agreed. He ended up scoring decent marks.
I repeated 11th grade in the same school (big mistake) and took PCM again (even bigger mistake) to prove people wrong who said I shouldn’t take it. I had three goals: study hard, make friends, and improve my health. I was bullied by my classmates but eventually made some friends, had a decent social life, and passed my UT exams, though not with great marks.
Things got worse when I started seeing my ex in the corridors. He asked a mutual friend how I was doing, and we tried to make things work again. I was very insecure, and he eventually wanted to break up again. A week before, he was sending me mixed signals, but he had made up his mind.
During his farewell, I found out he was close to another girl. It hurt a lot because I was still dealing with my insecurities. She even had the same name as me, which felt like a cruel twist. All I could think about was both of them doing the things we had discussed. I kept arguing with him in my mind.
My birthday and exams were coming up, and I couldn’t focus on anything but them. My grandfather also passed away, and I felt guilty for not visiting him due to exams. With all this happening, I got really depressed.
When the results came, I failed again.
Currently, I'm doing commerce from an open school and scoring well on my tuition exams. I'm not talking to anyone except family because I don't know how to reach out. I do feel lonely at times, but I am at peace. My liver got really bad due to poor eating habits, so now I'm eating healthy and exercising.
What also helped me is that I have shifted recently, so I had this sense that I am away from all those things and starting a new life. But today, I saw a boy from my first 11th batch in my new colony, and it broke me down so badly. He was friends with my ex.
I'm not using Instagram or any social media and I'm not in contact with anyone from my past.
I know at the end of the day, it's all my fault and I brought it upon myself.
If anyone has advice or just wants to share their thoughts, it would mean a lot to me.

Hey guys, new here but in desperate need of help. A few months ago I developed a bad rash under my armpits that burned and itched and eventually cracked and peeled, like a really bad sun burn. On a friend's recommendation, I started putting athletes foot cream on it after trying about every other cream I could think of. It helped, but once I got it cleared and stopped using the cream, it came right back. I got it to clear again for a few months, but now it's back worse than before and across the back of my neck as well. And this time I have a big pimple (possible boil) on the left side. I'm using the athletes cream again, but so far it hasn't helped like last time. It is burning really bad, like someone has a hot iron pressed to my armpits and whenever I move my arms to much, it feels like sandpaper and my skin is going to rip open. It's driving me insane. Could it be HS? I currently don't have health insurance and can't afford an out of pocket visit, so any advice on handling it on my own would be super helpful!

(Apologies for throwaway and any bad English, I’m Belgian)
For context, my ex and I were dating for 9 months and we only recently broke up as of a month ago now. My ex regularly tells me she loves me and I do so as well because those feelings honestly haven’t left me. We are both originally from Belgium but she left about 3 months ago for a job in Cologne, Germany. She has come back to Belgium last month after we had broken up for a college graduation and we were together the whole time. While she was here, she repeatedly said she loved me and was all over me.
We broke up because I have problems communicating how I feel during stressful situations. It was my decision but I regret it everyday. I have my final exams for college within a month and I believed it was only fair to her if we broke up/went on a break so she wouldn’t have to deal with me stressing and being upset. She didn’t want the break up because she loves me and wished I’d spoken to her about it but I don’t know how. During the break up, we continued to act like everything was the same (saying I love you, falling asleep on FaceTime every night etc..) but she started to mention a new coworker, Leon. Leon and her had started a friendship and by the way she spoke of him, I assumed she liked him. I asked her out of curiosity and she continued to deny it and say she loves me.
However, yesterday she said she has developed a crush on Leon and didn’t want to tell me. She told me this over FaceTime and I got upset that I was losing her. I didn’t tell her that but I promptly left and she pried how I felt out of me eventually. Every time I talk to her now it hurts because she still says she loves me and fell asleep with me on FaceTime last night as if everything was normal. I only want what is best for her and if she really wants this guy she should go for it but I can’t help but feel like my heart is crushing every time I talk to her. She hasn’t stopped talking to me at all and I’m due to visit her in Cologne after my exams. Should I cancel my flight and distance myself from her? I still love her so much and the idea of her with someone else kills me so is it better to stop talking to her? Thanks for reading.

I'm here working outside under the sun. No clouds in sight, just a friendly wind making the set up perfect.. I did my workout already at 7 o'clock, went for a little run and hit the gym. 1,5 hours in total. I'm finishing my thesis for university, tomorrow is the deadline and after many painful weeks I'm 100% positive that I will graduate this spring.. oh my god how good it feels to say that.
My background is quite dark. I'm 25, I've had a decent life so far; I have quite large social network and supporting family and friends. Careerwise I'm doing okay. I got a job and our band is about to sign a deal with one of the major labors. People describe me as a friendly, positive and funny person who's easy to hang out with. Well breaking news, that's all fake fellas..
Behind the scenes I was/I've been depressed as hell for 6 years. Today I realize the reason behind that was pörn and mösturbation addiction. For every single day ever since I was föcking 13 years old.. The shame I've carried all these years made me feel literally miserable and different from other people. Last time I was in relationship 7 years ago, which ended bc my low self esteem caused by pörn. My parents never taught me a single this about söx or pörn, I had to gain the knowledge by myself. Unfortunately I did it in a wrong way by watching pörn...
My nofap journey is currently at day 40, yay! I gotta tell you bros, I haven't felt this good since 2016.. I always used to dream it was 2016 again, now I realize that's unnecessary. The life is here right now. My confidence is flying through the roof, I find it super easy and interesting to talk to everyone all the time. I used to find small talk waste of time, now I'm living for it haha.
My focus is 1000% better than before. I find little things interesting such as this sunshine or writing a föcking journal update. Without doing this change, I wouldn't have been able to graduate.. Also I already have a thing with a girl I've fancied literally ever since I was 18. I föcking sent her a message and turns out she had a thing for me too back in the days.. Imagine. My first relationship in 7 years is potentially about to happen..
Earlier this year I already had some nofap attempts which makes this time easier I guess. I'm 100% committed for this new lifestyle and I NEVER want to go back to the darkness.
If you're still reading please listen. I just want to tell you that you HAVE TO fight real hard bro to get rid of pmo. I've been hitting my head against the wall, I've stayed up all night with the urges, I even had to leave my house at 2am just not to masturbate and stay in local gas station like a föcking idiot... It will be super hard at times, but believe me, the reward is just so amazing.. Something I didn't know even existed. I had already made the conclusion that I'm just different from the other people and will die alone.
I know day 40 is just the beginning but I feel like I've beaten the hardest part already. Now it's only one hard day per week, it used to be 7. 90 days will come so fast. Lastly, my tips on how to do it based on how I did it:

• Block porn sites on your phone and computer. On iPhone and Mac that can be done in settings, or then install a blocker app
• Start dopamine detox. This is crucial. Only this way your brain will get rid of the need of constant dopamine caused by porn. After week or two you won't be looking for porn just for boredom which is a trigger for many.
  • Remove TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, all the apps on your phone causing 1. dopamine overload 2. you to expose for sexual content.
  • Stop video games, Netflix series, all the things that give you infinite dopamine. Your brain is ruined I'm sorry to tell you. Most of ours are. And yes, you really have to suffer from boredom to make an actual progress. So goodbye all the discord friends, it's time to make real life friends.
  • Block the news sites on your phone. At least on iPhone you can manually block certain websites. The reason for this: 1. just like everything else, news are sexualized these days for more readers. You will get exposed for sexual images and titles. 2. News are mostly negative, which affects our brain wrong way. No, everything is not wrong in modern world, you just read too much news.
• Start working out. This is the hardest part for the most. Even if you're at bad shape, start walking outside, then running. Only this way you start to respect your own body and heal from the damage pörn did you your self esteem. Start lifting heavy weights in gym. Your testosterone levels will get back up and morning wood will be crazy,
• Avoid any sexual content as much as possible. Just do it. Don't watch twitch or play tinder. That will make you relapse. Unfortunately.
• Sleep with pants on.
• Don't even dare to touch yourself. Do not edge, or mösturbate even a little bit. Blue balls will make everything so much harder.
• Optional: start eating healthy and avoid sugar, quit nicotine, gambling and other addictions. Okay, this sound really hard, but I did it too. Now I'm addicted to new things like working out and having social life.

You have the strength in you to make the difference brother! Imagine having a hard time for ONE MONTH just to have the best time of your life for years. It's so easy to waste our life in internet but there is so much to feel and experience. Start today, and don't quit no matter what happens. 💪

CONTEXT: I have a cat named Thor whom I've had since he was 4 months old. He is now 2 and a half years old, and he's great with people. Acts totally fine with them and even allows random strangers to rub his belly. Which is why I find his current behavior strange.
Around 2 and a half weeks ago, we got another cat named Loki. He's 10 years old and diabetic, we got him because he was going to be put down if we didn't. He is very aggressive towards people, and only bonds with my sister despite the fact that everyone else tries to bond with him the same way. We don't overstimulate him, we back off when he hisses (which he does a lot). I tried to pet him on the head 5 days after we got him, and without warning he scratched and hissed after. I was bleeding. He now allows me to pet him on the head sometimes, but 90% of the time he hisses and I back off. He doesn't even allow my sister to rub him anywhere but the head, and he has shown very little progression in being accustomed to our home, even after 2 weeks. His previous owners surrendered him, and I have am pretty sure that he was abused or neglected before, so I try to give him space. But he's very aggressive, and despite being litter-trained we are unable to get him to use his litter box. This has resulted in him doing his business everywhere, and it's kind of disgusting.
Fact of the matter is that when these two cats are put in a visible range of each other, they collide and fur just goes everywhere, they make the loudest growling, hissing, and yelling sounds, and it's absolutely insane. Words can not describe how loud it is. I always break up the fight by yelling and picking up Thor. The strange thing is that the once happy and never aggressive cat is now fighting all the time (and on the winning side, which I kind of like, sorry) and has started becoming aggressive towards us. We're sort of thinking that adopting Loki was a mistake since it has just made our other cat angry all the time and has made our house a mess (furballs from fights+waste). Loki is the one jumping at Thor, which is odd since Thor is supposed to be the territorial one considering he was raised here. After the first fight, Thor has been growling under his breath when he sees Loki, and Loki just jumps at him, which in turn results in a fight. Do I let them battle it out (if it doesn't injure another cat) to resolve it or should I separate them? I don't think they are capable of ever getting along, and I don't want any cat to get hurt.

At the beginning of April, I had a medial meniscus root repair, 2 stiches. My surgeon wanted me NWB for 4 weeks, 2 weeks PWB with crutches, and post-6 weeks I will slowly start to drop the crutches. I have been doind light PT since day 3 and started seeing my athletic trainer about 12 days post op. Flexion is currently around 110 degrees.
I needed to take a 5.5 hour flight 5 weeks post-op for work (just happened this week). I was cleared by my AT to fly last week, but she instructed me to wear a compression sleeve from my foot to my mid thigh and continue with the baby aspirin. I was pretty nervous working up to this, mostly bc I am still not fully weight bearing and wanted to share my key takeaways since there have been some questions.

• My husband dropped me off at the airport and brought my bag to the check in desk so I didnt have to try and pull it. I would have been able to do so but it would have been hard.
  
• I secured wheelchair service at both airports and I will say, these people are angels. They made sure I was safe, made it to my gate, and I even got to stop by the lounge on my flight out to get coffee. Make sure to tip your person as they work really hard and dont make a lot.
  
• I had to get the pat down since I cannot take the brace off while walking. It was fine, not invasive, just plan a little extra time, especially if you are female as they have to call a woman to pat you down and at both airports there were more male TSA agents.
  
• I checked my normal carry-on roller bag so I wouldnt have to deal with it. Having someone who can manage the bag if you are still on crutches will be important; the wheelchair person helped me get the bag off the carousel once I landed.
  
• I was fortunate enough for this flight (and another next week) to be in first as this is required work travel. Having the bulk row made a HUGE difference so I could actually elevate my leg. I would recommend paying for the extra legroom in economy or first if you have to fly while you are still NWB or PWB since actually standing up on the flight is HARD.
  
• One of the HARDEST things was actually getting into the plane. The step up was really high and I felt that I put too much weight on my surgical leg to propel up. I made it, it was fine… but not easy. Getting out of the plane was easy.
  
• I wore my compression sleeve the entire flight out to PHL. I didnt need ice but I did bring two 1-gallon ziplock bags. On the flight home, I needed ice so I asked the FA to fill up one and I placed it in the second bag to avoid leaking. I also brought a dish towel to place on my leg.
  
• I took baby aspirin every 12 hours starting the day before the flight and everyday before the return flight. I dont know if this ACTUALLY helped (limited evidence) but it made me feel better.
  
• I tried to hydrate a lot the day or two before and while on the flight.
  
• The FA were able to help me get my crutches down so I could go to the bathroom a couple times during each flight. I tried to time it around smooth travel. Obviously this isnt easy to predict but I was able to manage. Go slow… it is doable. Warning, the bathroom doors dont stay open without holding them.
  
• I did all the PT exercises that I could, as often as I could, while seated and made sure I stood up every 2 hours minimum. I wore my Birkenstocks so I could keep an eye on my toes.
  
• The flight out was actually fine. It was really early so I was well rested. The flight home was rough. I had been working, standing and moving for 2 days at this point, and I was swollen BEFORE I boarded the return. By the time I landed back home, my leg(s) were really swollen and my toes looked like sausages. It was a little unnerving but it went away by the time I woke up. I wish I had stood up more. Moved More.
  
• I am able to unlock my brace to 90 degrees when I am seated, and can even take it off so that actually helped a lot and made things more comfortable.
  
• Staying at a hotel alone was an entirely different adventure that I am happy to share
  
• I have another 6hr flight in a few days. I can update if anything new happens.
  

I hope this is useful. I would NOT have been comfortable doing this trip NWB. Partly bc I was alone. That said, my general takeaway is that people are kind and genuinely want to help. From the check in desk agents, to the gate agents, the wheelchair support, the Flight Attendants, and fellow passengers, everyone was SO nice and patient and helpful. I am not one to ask for help. Losing my autonomy has slowly destroyed me, but I needed it, and I wouldn't have been able to do this without others.

It was just supposed to be another camping trip, like so many others we had gone on.
The town we live in isn't huge, but it does have a lot of woodland to explore. We live on the edge of what most people would call Appalachia and we’ve had more than one weird experience out there. Once, as my friends and I walked down the familiar trails, we smelled a strong and unpleasant scent. Brian thought it must have been a bear, but I’d smelled bear smells before. We’d had one winter under our back porch one year, and this was very different from the musty smell he had left when spring came.
Another time, while we were camping, we saw ghost lights in the woods. They were beautiful, red and blue and yellow and orange, and though Justin was afraid of them, I felt drawn to go to them and see them better. I knew better, though. Grandma had told all of us about the dangers of following the ghost lights and had assured us all that we wouldn’t like where they would take us.
“The lands of Fairy is beautiful, but also terrible for mortals to behold. They would make you young for the rest of your days, though that might not be as long as you might think.” She always said with an evil grin.
We’d heard whistling and strange growls, throaty yells, and strange birds, but none of it ever really scared me. The woods had always been a friendly place, a place of adventure, and I always looked forward to my time there. I never felt uneasy when I was within its borders, and as the four of us prepared to go back into the woods for another camping expedition, I was excited.
Brain’s brother had told him about an old trestle bridge deep in the woods and we all wanted to see it.
It was part of the old railroad, something that hadn’t run through the town in a long time. The tracks were still there, the old station too, but the trains had been mostly for passengers, and we had none these days. No one came in, no one left, and we had no industry for the trains to transport. All the wood we harvested went to the sawmill or the paper mill, and there was no need to transport it by rail. The trestle bridge hadn’t seen a train cross it in twenty years and spanned a small gorge in the middle of the forest. Brian said his brother claimed the bridge was where high school kids went to drink beer, and now that we were Freshmen, we should go out there too.
“He said it was a right of passage and that we should go see if the right had decided to leave us a gift out there.”
We didn’t know what sort of gift that would be, but we were all curious to see the bridge.
So, we told our parents we would be camping one weekend in April and took to the woods.
Brian and I were eager, talking about how cool it would be to see it, but Justin and Frank seemed hesitant. Well, that wasn’t quite true. Justin was hesitant, as he almost always was, and Frank was kind of ambivalent. We had met him last year at the start of ninth grade and he had made a pretty good addition to our trio. Frank wasn’t an avid hiker, but he liked to hang out in the woods and get a little high from time to time and that was good enough for us. He also brought outstanding camping snacks, so we were more than happy to hit the trails with him. I wasn’t certain there was a sleeping bag in that rucksack of his, but I could already hear the crinkle of chips and snack cakes within it.
“Any idea how far off this bridge is?” Justin asked, plodding along grumpily.
Justin didn’t mind hiking, but he wasn’t big on aimlessly wandering around in the woods. He had packed enough to make up for Frank’s lack of gear, and the tent poked up over his left shoulder. He was plodding along at the back of the group and I was sure we’d have to listen to a fair amount of complaining before we got there.
“My brother says it's about three miles into the woods, following the river until we come to the gorge. After that, it should be pretty easy to find.”
“And if your brother is playing a trick on us? If he’s just messing with us and we walk three hours into the woods for nothing?”
Brian rolled his eyes, “Then we have a fun little adventure to talk about when we go to college, don’t we?”
Justin grumbled about having to walk three miles into the woods, but we couldn’t have picked a better day for it. The weather was perfect, a slight breeze keeping the early summer heat at bay. The clouds overhead looked a little wet, but they were nowhere close. We’d have a nice camping trip this weekend, a nice little excuse to fish and relax and enjoy ourselves as we explored the old trestle. The woods around the town were full of things like that, and we’d explored old houses that had been retaken by the underbrush or abandoned vehicles that sagged amongst the leaves. When we were in seventh grade, we even found an old concrete culvert out there that led into an underground cave that looked a little spooky in the light of our flashlights.
The farther we walked, however, the less certain I was that the clouds wouldn’t be a problem. The deeper into the woods we went, the more the smell of rain surrounded us. Brian smelled it too, and our pace increased as we kept heading deeper into the forest. Maybe it was just a little rain, maybe it was just a short downpour, and maybe we could get past it before it soaked everything.
When the gorge came into view and I saw the rising, skeletal edifice of the trestle, I breathed a sigh of relief.
“There she is, boys,” Brian said, sounding surprised to have found it as well.
“Looks pretty wrecked,” Frank said, tossing the stub of a cigarette into the gorge, “We aren’t actually going up on that thing, are we?”
“Wel, ya,” Brian said, “That's kind of the whole reason we came, wasn’t it?”
“You might,” Frank said, “but I don’t care what kind of surprise is up there, I ain’t going.”
He had plenty of time to rethink his statement. Just because we had found the gully, didn’t mean we had made it to the trestle. The closer we got, the more I could see that, for its age, it really was in amazing shape. It was less skeletal than I had thought and looked more like a covered metal bridge. The underside of the trestle was a dark cave, the shadows thick and deep, and I really didn’t want to explore the underside unless we REALLY had to. Something about it made me uncomfortable, and as we got closer and closer to the base, the whole thing seemed to grow.
It was mid-afternoon when we finally made it, and Brian let his pack fall as he set about climbing at once.
“Uh, you don’t wanna set up camp first?” Justin asked, taking out his tent and tools for making a fire.
“I want to see the woods from up there,” Brian said, looking at me as if to ask if I was coming.
I let my own pack side off and we climbed the side of the trestle side by side. We were laughing as the ground got farther and farther away, the girders lifting us above the trees until we finally crested the top and came to the old tracks of the railroad. I was full of wonder as I looked out over the woods, the trestle spanning the entire gorge before slanting back down to the woods again. From up here, the clouds looked very dark, and I wondered if the tent would be enough to keep us from getting wet.
“Check this out,” Brian said, dangling his feet over the side as he looked down into the gorge.
Watching him made me slightly dizzy, and I didn’t dare join him on the precipice.
When he came back up, however, he had a rope with him and nodded me over to help him pull it up. It wasn’t really heavy, but we were careful not to get it stuck on anything. Brian left me to pull so he could look over the edge and reported that the rope was attached to an old, red cooler. As it came up and over the edge, I saw that the rope was attached to the handle and the whole thing was the red of a kid's wagon left out in the sun. The box was ancient, the bystander of a thousand summer outings, and there was something inside it.
Brian opened the lid and smiled as he pulled out a lukewarm six-pack of Natty Ice, a brand I was passing familiar with. Dad, a staunch Budweiser man, had always shook his head and called it “pisswater” when he saw it on sale, but I figured for a bunch of kids who were barely old enough to buy beer the price was probably right. I assumed Brian’s brother had put it there, he had told us where to find the trestle bridge, after all, and as Brian fished the note out from under them, my suspicions were confirmed.
“Brian, this is a place where high schoolers have come to drink and hang out for generations. Our own mom and dad sat on this bridge and drank when they were in High school, and now it’s your turn. I spotted you a sixer this time, but you’ll have to bring your own next time. If you ever have extra, leave them in this cooler and then tuck the cooler back under the trestle bridge. Also, don’t go under the bridge, we think there might be a bear under there. Kevin.”
The thought of a bear so close to our campsite kind of scared me, but Brian brushed it off.
“He’s probably just messing with us. Want one?” he asked, popping the top on one as he offered me another one.
I hesitated. I’d never drank before, but I figured just one wouldn’t kill me. It was warm and tasted terrible, but it wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever had. Brian drank his quick, laughing as he threw the can into the gorge far below. We watched it spiral down, spilling the last few remaining drops before it clinked weakly on the bottom.
As if in answer, there was a distant rumble of thunder, and from our vantage point we saw the lightning crack in the distance.
We were on a big metal structure with lightning coming in quick and rain already pattering lightly around us.
“We better go,” I said, Brian looking at the lightning as it rumbled again. He nodded and we decided to run down the tracks rather than try to scale back down. It would mean doubling back, but it wouldn’t be a long trip, and the thought of juggling the rest of the beers and trying to climb down sounded nuts. Brian was holding the four of them close as he ran, smiling to himself as he talked about showing them to the guys.
“Justin will flip!” Brian said with an evil laugh, “You know he still won’t even be around anyone who smokes because of that dumb DARE pledge?”
He was right too. Justin was furiously hammering in tent pegs when we arrived, looking up at the sky every time a drop hit him. He stopped, though, when he noticed us come back with cans that clearly weren’t soda. Frank must have recognized them because he laughed and commented that they had found a pretty cool surprise. Brian tossed him one, turning to Justin as he offered him one too.
Justin put his hands on his hips, looking like my mother when she was disappointed in me.
“Hell no, and you shouldn’t either. Why would you just drink something you found on a rickety bridge?
Brian blew out a long breath and popped open another one, “Because, spaz, my brother left them for us. There was a note and everything, so cool your jets.”
Justin went back to work, mumbling darkly about being reckless and drinking things that could be poisoned or drugged.
The tent came up, and not a moment too soon. The rain was really starting to come down, and it looked like there would be no fire tonight. We all headed into the tent, the wind picking up as it shoved at the tent and made the ropes and pegs groan. It was big enough to fit us all comfortably, and as the lamps came out, Brian held up the last two beers.
"Split the last two?" he asked, everyone but Justin agreeing. We poured them into our camp cups, starting to clink them together before Brian turned to Justin. He was pretending to busy himself with something in the corner, but it was pretty clear he didn't approve of what we were doing.
"Come on, Justin, it's not gonna hurt you. I tell you what, if we see you become an alcoholic after one sip, we'll push you into the gorge and save you the embarrassment."
"Not funny," Justin said, but we had clearly worn him down. After another half-hearted refusal, he finally held his cup out to Justin who grinned as he poured the last of the beer into it. Then we clinked our glasses together and drank, everyone pulling a face which we laughed at. As the storm raged outside we ate some MREs we had packed just in case of bad weather and started on ghost stories. Brian was just telling us about a man with a hungry ghost in his basement when a big gust of wind hit the tent hard enough to collapse the middle brace and send it crashing down on us.
We floundered for a minute, looking for the zipper as we tried to escape, and finally stepping out into the driving rain. It was still afternoon, the sun an angry line amidst the storm clouds, and I turned as I heard someone struggling with the tent. Justin was trying to pull it, the wind threatening to take it from him with every gust.
"Come on," he shouted, "Help me get it under the trestle. It should work as a windbreak."
I remembered the warning about a bear, but Brian just shouted back that it was either the bear or the rain.
"Besides," he said, "If we see one, we'll just run like hell."
It was hard to argue with him while the rain was coming down, so we all grabbed a tent post and moved it into the dry cave created by the trestle. Unlike a lot of train trestles I had seen in movies and TV shows, this one was enclosed. I'm still not sure why, but it worked out well for us that day. We knocked in the tent pegs and sat in the tent as we watched the rain come down in buckets outside. Our stuff had gotten a little wet, but we hadn't brought anything that couldn't take a little water. As the light gave way to dark, we started breaking out our lanterns and cards, settling in for the night as we listened to the rain.
As I lay there watching Justin and Brian play their fourth or fifth game of Magic the Gathering, I started hearing something besides the rain. It was a deep rumbling, like something snoring deep under the metal bridge. I thought again about Brian's brother telling us there was a bear under there. I didn't want to get eaten by a bear in my sleep, and if we were going to have to move again, it was better to know now.
I took out my flashlight and started looking into the shadowy depths of the trestle, but there was nothing to be seen. There was some very thick-looking mud under here, some of it having made little stalagmites on the ground, but I couldn't see anything sleeping under there. It wouldn't make a very good den, I reflected as I shone my light around. It was open on both sides with the gorge coming in about thirty feet from our tent. There was really nowhere for anything to live down here, but as I swung the light from right to left, I could still hear that weird breathing.
On a whim, I pointed it up and under the bridge, and that was when I saw it.
At first, I thought it was a bunch of bats clustered together, but when it flinched under the beam of my light, I knew it was just one big thing. It was a huge bat, maybe bigger than me, with its large, leathery wings pulled up tight around it. It was clinging to the bottom of the trestle bridge, and I imagine it had been a bad spot to hang when the trains still ran. I spotted a slight movement to its left and found a second one hanging not far from it. In total, there were four of them, and when one of them shifted its wings to look down at me with a red, unhappy eye, I turned off the flashlight and zipped up the tent.
The guys had some strong words when I started turning off the lanterns, but I told them to be quiet and get down.
"What?" Frank asked, "Did you see something out there?"
"Was it the bear?" Brian asked, keeping his voice low as we hunkered doen.
"What bear?" Justin asked, but I waved a hand at them, trying to get them to be quiet.
"It's not bear," I hissed, but about that time, there was a weird sound from outside.
It sounded like a high-pitched yawn as something came awake followed by the rustle of wings. The talk in the tent had ceased now, and you could have heard a mouse fart. In the dark of the undercroft, we heard something huge and leathery take flight, rustling the canvas of the tent as it left the darkness. A second took flight a moment after, and I heard water cascade down as it shook the top of the trees. We all lay on our stomachs, panting for breath as we listened for more.
I had seen four, and only two had left so far.
When something hit the ground about a foot from our tent, Justin had to slap a hand over his mouth to stop from screaming. The hushed remnants squeaked from between his fingers like a deflating balloon, but if the creature heard it, it never showed any sign. I could see the vague outline of it as it rose to its full height, and as it flapped its wings and took flight, the tent rustled like it had in the wind.
"Is that all of them?" Brian asked, three sets of eyes turning my way.
I started to tell them there had been a fourth, but that was when the fourth fell on top of the tent. We were very lucky, all things considered. It landed right in the middle of the tent, shattering the plastic pole and sending the plastic material down around us. The creature's toenails scrabbled across it noisily as it tried to find purchase, and when it took off I was afraid it would simply carry us off with it. Instead, it just ripped a hole in the top as it flew off, all of us still reeling as we lay under the canvas.
After a few minutes, it was decided that we would take our sleeping bags and our packs and leave the tent behind.
We spent a miserable night huddled under the biggest tree we could find. We probably looked like fat cata pillars as we hunkered against the roots of the big tree, but we were as dry as we could manage. We all kept looking towards the skies, afraid the giant bat things would come after us, but they never did. We didn't talk, we didn't dare, and when the sun came up, we made our way out of the woods. We arrived at my house cold, scared, and unwilling to talk about what we had seen. My parents probably thought we had run afoul of something like a bear or a cougar, but they had no idea.
That was about two weeks ago, and we haven't been back in the woods since. Just knowing that those things are in the woods makes us not want to be there after dark. It's a shame because the woods were our spot, our sanctuary, and now it seems tainted. Brian doesn't even leave the house after sunset these days, and Justin looks at the sky when he's walking. Frank says he doesn't really want to talk about it, and I think he's stoned a lot of the time.
I dream about it sometimes, the way that one big red eye looked at me when I shone the flashlight on it, and I can't help but wonder what something that big eats?
I think it will be a good long time before I talk any of them back into the woods, and our camping days may be at an end.

Never wanted to post here, but I don't know who to talk to or where to go to make me feel better. I'm 24(F). I've been dealing with this for a very long time, but this year it seems too much, and most of the time it becomes unbearable. It started when I was in high school, I was 14. I just woke up one day with this weird feeling at the pit of my stomach, It's like having butterflies but very intense. My heart would palpitate so much that I could hear it and feel it in my ears. I would experience this every once in a while before. Sometimes I would refrain from going to school because I would feel a sense of unbelongingness. This goes on for years, and I ignored it and never told anyone about it because, at the back of my head, I was thinking maybe everyone is feeling like this and maybe this is normal. I turned 18, and it became worse. It would happen more than usual, sometimes twice a month. And to add to the frequency of it, it went to the point where I would burst out crying for no particular reason. It would go on for 30 minutes, then stop, and then come back at night. If I don't cry, I feel like my air passage is gonna get blocked. And the weird feeling in my stomach just got worse. It almost feels like it's burning. Now I'm 24. And I never would have imagined that this thing would even get worse. I can't even count how many times I have felt like this in the last 2 months. Sometimes it would go on for days, and I would feel shit. Sometimes it really becomes unbearable; I was just lying in bed most of the day. Sometimes even stepping out of the house or thinking of going outside or doing anything would trigger this feeling. I don't want to suffer with this anymore. And what if it becomes worse than it is now? What will happen to me? Sometimes when I would lay on the floor, I would see a reflection of me doing absolute madness, one that I would never think of doing like choking myself, jumping off the window, or even stabbing myself. When that happens, I feel a chill at the back of my spine, but I also feel relieved? I don't know what's happening with me, and I don't want to end up doing those things. I don't want anyone I know to know about this or see me when I'm trying my best to breathe but can't and cry like the fucking shit I am. I tried looking for some free consultation, but it's beyond my budget. And thinking about saying all this to someone is absolutely hard; even thinking about it makes me feel like I'm about to lose my breath.

I've been dating my boyfriend for about 3.5 years. We are both weird and quirky and it feels amazing to date someone who just understand me. We're both introverts and we both only have a couple other friends and most of the time we only hang out with each other. In general we agree with each other on a lot of things but not everything. Our interests don't overlap much though, and sometimes that can be a strain. We talked about kids and having a family and we both agree on parenting styles and mostly seem to agree about hypothetical situations.
Although he would have ideally wanted to wait a couple more years, we discussed surrogacy and he agreed to go through the process and raise a child with me. This is all on me, I'm paying for everything. I'm not rich and I saved a long time to get the money for this. It will be biologically my child. We aren't at the point where we are pregnant, but it would be costly to delay significantly, and moreso to back out.
He's always been somewhat sensitive and tends to shut down when he's upset. For a while though, we were starting to get along better and better. But slowly over the past year things that I do have begun to upset him more and more frequently. Most of the time I don't think he's being reasonable, but he won't accept agreeing to disagree. He also has a very polarized view on certain world events and is becoming increasingly upset with my stubbornly middle ground views.
However it doesn't even need to be some big topic. For example, just today, we are on a road trip with my family and had to do a border checkpoint we weren't expecting. I was driving. The officer asked for photo ID from everyone in the van so I yell that back to everyone. As I'm getting mine out he goes on to say any ID, passport, driver's license, etc. It's taking a while. Apparently everyone in the back was digging around for passports instead of readily available driver's license. I wasn't looking back, I don't know this. But I yell back again, turn around, see what's going on and clarify. We get moving, no issues, less than two minutes total. But afterwards he's upset with me for not telling them they could have used driver's licenses, saying photo ID doesn't mean driver's license?? That's why everyone was looking for passports. I could have just went meh and let it go but I was not having it today. So I was like absolutely not. Your driver's license is an ID and it has your picture. Absolutely no clarification should have been necessary. So he goes on about how I make everything needlessly difficult (We went back and forth a few times but basically just rewording the same statements) and then he won't talk to me for about 8 hours. My family thinks he's being unreasonable, but they're all nice and will never say anything to him. And I never said anything but couldn't shotgun seat (him) pass that info along just as easily?
Anyway the point isn't one particular situation, but mostly to highlight that small things are setting him off now. I'm at my wits end and I'm not just keeping my mouth shut which compounds the problem. And I promise, while he's always been sensitive, he's never been this level of unreasonable. I'm not sure if there's a way to approach this differently? Something I'm not seeing? I can be sassy especially in situations where I feel someone deserves a little sass. I have been trying to reign it in, but it's getting to the point where I feel like I'm walking on eggshells while he's putting in no effort. He's in-between jobs at the moment. The whole surrogacy thing. Traveling. These are all things that I'm sure are adding extra stress to him lately. We've tried therapy in the past but had a very mediocre therapist and I'm not sure I can convince him to try again, and to be honest my heart wouldn't be in the effort to convince him either.
I have a feeling I know what the comments will say. It seems everyone is always so quick to say break up. But it feels so horrible to call it quits when there are so many good memories and good times that we do still have. And now with being in the middle of a surrogacy contract? I am an anxious person who always thinks of every possible way things can go wrong. And I've thought about what would happen if he were to leave me with the kid by myself before I even started the surrogacy process. I'm confident I could do take care of a kid without a partner. But it would be difficult and I wouldn't want that for me or especially the child.
He lives with me in a two family house with my parents in the other unit. He doesn't get along well with his family, so moving out, even temporarily, would be difficult for him.
Please help me bounce some ideas.

Key term Fade=fighting Messy= drama or gossiping
I am a 15-year-old girl, and my friends are arguing, but I’m not taking sides. In the middle of the night, my friends decided to text the group chat, confronting two girls, Aylah and Kylah, saying they were messy and not good friends. Kylah and my best friend started going back and forth, so I didn’t see it until morning. When I woke up to them arguing at the crack of dawn, I tried to be the peacemaker and see both sides. However, my best friend was kind of in the wrong, so I pointed that out because what Aylah and Kylah were being called “messy” for was something we all had done. I didn’t see why she was tweaking about it. I found out my best friend was speaking on behalf of another friend, Fatima, who was actually mad about them being “messy” or not good friends. Fatima stated her reasons, saying they were immature, couldn’t take things seriously, and were rude. Kylah dismissed it and said they did nothing wrong. Aylah was still sleeping at that time. They continued arguing until morning when they supposedly resolved the issue. That morning, we had a late start at school, so we didn’t have to go in until 12:09. When I opened the Instagram at the asscrack of dawn to the group chat, I saw Aylah, who was accused of being messy, reply to all the messages with Kylah backing her up. A new can of worms opened, with a lot of yapping and arguing. Aylah said she shouldn’t have been friends with my best friend and should have been cut her off because she ruined her party and got mad at her for no reason. After a lot of back and forth, my best friend kicked them out of the group chat.Aylah and Kylah then talked shit about them in another group chat, saying they weren’t close to Fatima and didn’t care about dropping them. After all that back and forth, my best friend and Kylah made up before school. However, Aylah joked and typed, “Kylah, put on some Vaseline on your face, wear a scarf on your head, and some stomping boots.” I was shocked because they were just friends an hour ago and had made up.While I was in PE, my phone was in my locker, and my best friend posted the screenshot of Aylah’s text on her story, which was confirmed to be a joke. After all this mess, my best friend and Aylah are planning to fight at the end of school, which is in four days. So, Reddit community, who do you think is in the wrong—Aylah and Kylah or my best friend and Fatima? And am I wrong for thinking this is stupid and that they should go on about their life, and AITAH not giving a fuck And want to record them fight because the woke me up from my precious sleep(jokes) ? And also please tell me who do you think was the asshole my bestfriend and Fatima or Kylah and Aylah

I like this flair, it's funny as FK
Don't associate with people on a lower frequency than you Relationships or friendships (I'm still young ISH but idk how to make sure the person I'm trusting is 100% good for me)
I've had friendships where I did more than I received and I feel unfairly treated
In that scenario idk how to feel except - I wish I had a time machine so I could never do this person anything or give them anything cuz wow what a disrespectful p
Aside from the bottled up emotions I have mixed feelings about this
I'm upset mostly cuz they don't seem to care or even bother to care.
Like it just leaves you in silence with questions and yknow it starts to bottle up emotions till you burst in frustration
Happens a lot than
Any advice on friendships or how you qualify people to be your friends? I want to avoid being in a one sided relationship with anyone where I'm doing more work with nothing to gain from it
I return for empty appreciations
It's important that you 100% stop what you're doing and think am I putting more effort than they deserve? If so, leave it.

Freshman year screwed me over academically and mentally because of covid. Online learning was really, really tough for me because of my ADHD and autism. I basically just didn't do anything and just sat there staring at my computer. Over the next three years, I managed to get decent grades in my core subjects and a few elective classes as well as using online credit recovery to get my credits up. Right now, as everyone else is graduating, I only have 19 out of the required 22 credits to graduate. All those missing credits are electives I couldn't pass or never took due to my focus on core subjects. I currently have 6 classes I need to do to graduate. I am starting summer school soon and will hopefully get a couple of those classes done online and everything I don't finish online, will have to be done first semester of next school year. I just feel so worthless and depressed having to repeat a semester of school. Also really anxious because I know I really want my diploma and, if I don't pass a class for any reason (keep in mind I could be taking upwards of six classes at the same time), I may end up repeating again and/or not getting my diploma.
TL;DR: had to repeat a semester of senior year because I have 19 out of 22 credits and it's taking a toll on my mental health.

Hi everyone. I'm training for my first half. I've done the Olympic and many, many sprint distances before. I'm no great athlete but I enjoy triathlon a lot and want to challenge myself. All I know is if I keep going, I'll finish eventually. Anyway, I'm training. This past weekend was the first time I ever tried going to 70 km on my bike nonstop. It's pretty typical for me to go for a 55 km ride on the weekend, but I rarely pass that distance. I only started cycling about 5-6 years ago for triathlon. Anyway, this was a windless (mostly) day, flat terrain, mostly paved, mostly uninterrupted by traffic lights. I went at a moderate pace. Once I hit 55 km, though, I was starting to feel it, and once I got to around 60 km, I was suffering. All in my low back, left side. But up until around 50 km, I'd say it was a normal ride that was flat and uneventful. Any advice on how to get myself up to that 90 km comfortably? Do I just need to do more distance rides crossing that 60 km mark and keep on pushing that distance a little at a time? This was my first time out at that distance... This may or may not be relevant: 1) I am thinking of upgrading my bike in about a month's time 2) I don't have aerobars or even clip in bike shoes. 3) I had my fit done by a bike shop friend, but we sort of did it just in my living room one night when he said I could definitely raise the seat and get more power out -- and that bike fit was like a game changer. I intend to get a proper fit, but will wait for when I get a new bike. Thanks in advancE!!!!!!! Going to bike ride now. Up hills. :/

29F & 29M boyfriend of 1 year; is he insecure ? Doesn’t trust me or am I the problem? + baby Daddy drama
Buckle up this one might be long, appreciate any advice or similar experience 🫶🏼
I 29F of a 4 year old little girl from a previous relationship/marriage of 11 years I split from my 29M baby daddy 3 years ago but lived together for bit after the split ( we both financially couldn’t afford to leave it is what it is we made it work but we knew we couldn’t fix our marriage it was toxic and abusive my daughter deserved better.
I do not want to get back with my BD ever in this lifetime, but we are on friendly terms; Good friends if you want to call it, I don’t hate his guts even after all we went through we were both awful to each other at times but we’ve healed. we always had a plan for our co parenting future to stay good friends and be involved ( example doing zoo trips, or birthdays together)
Fast forward to a year ago the ex moved out; I met a wonderful new guy who was total opposite of my ex and was everything I wanted in a person he is also a dad to one little boy from a previous relationship which I found so attractive in him. We moved in together in the summer. ( he has a pretty strict talk about the child only relationship with his BM)
Now here’s the problem; my baby daddy has been a pretty absent father over the last year since I’ve moved in with my new bf. He pops in once every month or so to see our daughter or asks me to go out with him and her (he has admitted he wasn’t comfortable being alone with her as he’s been absent) he messages me every couple weeks about random stuff like his new car or something random rarely about our daughter. This upsets me and I tell him to step up but you can’t force people to be parents I’ve tried for my daughter’s sake but it’s like talking to a brick wall. He claims he’s “ too busy” so I’ve just went with the flow.
My current boyfriend and I fight a lot when it comes to my BD when he pops in because he says I still care too much or because he sent me a pic of his car and I replied “cool”; and I bend over backwards for him whenever he wants to see his daughter once every month or two and going out with him and my daughter is unacceptable. My boyfriend has stepped up huge to help with my daughter and he’s a great step dad I’m so thankful but at the same time I’m not chasing my BD to be a dad and won’t deny him seeing his daughter like my boyfriend wishes I would and constantly tells me I should be doing ( to me my BD needs to get his shit together and is from girl to girl so personally I’d rather him keep distance while he’s being selfish right now)
I grew up in a family where my mom and dad split when I was 4 and they stayed friends my whole life so it’s normal to me it’s all I know.
Please help because I’m currently at an ultimatum. I love my boyfriend but my BD isn’t going anywhere we’re connected for life and I don’t want my daughter to miss out on memories of both her parents being involved in things ( and to add I’ve tried many times to get all the parents his BM and our kids involved in things together and no luck obv cause bf doesn’t want to see his BM or my BD) my boyfriend just seems so hostile and angry when it comes to my baby daddy being so in and out right now and wants to punish him? And purposely makes comments or remarks to start fight with me when he knows I chatted with my BD about literally nothing and harmless chat never given a reason for him to think I want BD back….
Am I the problem or will my boyfriend never get over the insecurity of me being “good friends” with my EX/BD?!

So I’m usually loathe to ask for advice from internet strangers, but I’m genuinely tweaking over this decision and I feel like I need advice and thoughts from people who aren’t connected to me.
I (20m) am a half-Japanese rising senior in college studying electrical engineering. No internship or research this summer, and an okay but very meh GPA (3.12). As this is probably the last summer break of my life, I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s coming next and I’m torn between two paths. I could either start relentlessly applying to jobs to try to get a job in engineering after I graduate, or I could do something completely different and try to move to Japan to teach English as a foreign language for the next year or two, before returning to engineering and beginning my career in earnest.
If I was to go with the latter, I’d apply through the JET (Japan Exchange & Teaching) program, a program facilitated by the Japanese government to set up English speaking foreigners in Japan to assist teachers in elementary through high school language classrooms. They pay you, set you up in an apartment, and cover the flight over if you’re selected.
There are a lot of reasons I want to do it, and also a lot of reasons the thought scares me.
I was born in Tokyo but my family moved to the US when I was around three years old, so I’ve been raised essentially American. However, half my family, including my dad, grandparents, aunt and uncle, and half sister all live in Japan. My family over there is actually larger than my family in the US, which is just my mom and little brother. They are the biggest reason why I want to go. I would love to become closer with my extended Japanese family and to connect more deeply with my culture. Of course, the idea of living is Japan is also sick as fuck, and it’s an opportunity that could actually be once in a lifetime. My Japanese, while not at all near fluent, is around low-intermediate conversational, and if I decided to pursue the JET program I would pick up some Japanese classes at my university next year. Additionally, I kind of feel like something needs to change in my life. I’ve lived in the same college town for 8 years now (high school and then college) relentlessly pursuing these crazy academic goals. I’ve thrown away friends and partners to focus more on school, and I would be lying if I said it all wasn’t starting to weigh on me. Not necessarily burnout but…I often fantasize about being able to escape the rat race, at least for a little.
But on the other hand, I fear that this decision could negatively impact my engineering career in the future. Being a rising senior who hasn’t gotten an internship yet, I already feel behind the curve and the thought of wasting my time and being left behind professionally is a really scary one. I worry that doing the JET program, although personally fulfilling, would be a frivolous diversion that shoots my career in the foot. I’ve been trying to hedge my bets slightly by working on projects on my own time that would be impressive on my resume (building an FM radio transmitter, a synthesizer, a generative art program, stuff like that). I’m just not sure that would be enough to stack up compared to people a year or two younger than me who’ve had internships at FAANG companies.
Since JET applications for 2025 (my grad year) don’t open until fall, I will most likely spend the summer applying for engineering jobs. But given the choice between the two, I don’t know which is the right decision. Both my parents have been strongly encouraging me to go for the JET program (my mom is an ESL teacher who met my dad while teaching English in Japan), and every time I talk about it with my friends they tell me I sound like I really want to do it but keep trying to convince myself not to. That’s probably true, but I want to be realistic. Of course, there’s no guarantee I’m even accepted into the JET program, and there’s a world where I neither get an engineering job nor have the opportunity to move to Japan. Hopefully that doesn’t happen though. Anyway at this point I’m rambling. I just want to get some advice from people with more life experience than me.

So, basically I live in a country from where half of the people here are homophobic and the rest will either bearly tolerate you or is gay
So I live with my godmother (biological mother's dead) and father, and it was a long time since I talked with my godmother, so I started up a convo and I ended up with the info that I'm a pussy and no man if I am in the LGBTQ community, have long hair and/or wear baggy clothes
I wanted to paint my nails black for a long while and now I have money to buy nail polish, but I'm terrified of what she's gonna think about me, and also I don't want to be bullied in class for it
I want to know what you guys think bc I don't know what to do anymore

Hello, theydeez, gentlethems, cyborgs, annedroids, mandroids and all other variants. As the title says, I've got some drunk redneck neighbors that I absolutely despise, and their constant shenanigans inspired an idea that I would like to see built. Unfortunately, I don't have the means to build it, myself, but by golly, the idea needs to be put out there in hopes that someday, somehow, it'll see the light of day.
I call it, Recital-Bot.
The basic components would be a housing, a compressed air tank, a microcontroller, a series of servos, a trumpet, some sort of valve setup, a reasonably powerful speaker, a usb/memory card port for adding new music, and a series of sound files of a tween cussing.
The idea is, the microcontroller runs the servos that actuate the valves on the trumpet and the valve that blows air through the trumpet. You can add trumpet sheet music via the usb/memory card port, and hey presto, it'll play music.
Now listen, I know that this isn't, by itself, terribly ingenious. The terrible ingenuity is coming.
This thing would need to have multiple modes of operation, as follows:
1) Lt Cmdr Data-Mode. This plays the sheet music exactly as it appears on the page with no variation or 'emotion' to it. Will play anything, but the more complicated, the better.
2) Commander Riker-Mode. This mode figuratively flings a leg over the back of a chair before it starts playing and rubs a little funk on the music. It still plays off the added sheet music, but there is some randomness programmed in so that it varies the length of the notes played from what the sheet music says by a few fractions of a second and wiggles the valves a little bit to put some flair on what is being played. But, still plays pretty much exactly what is on the page. Plays only upbeat, funky or sexy songs.
3) Shut up, Wesley-Mode. Will play for a random amount of time, but no longer than 20 minutes at a stretch, but will randomly activate multiple times per day. Randomly leaves out notes, but otherwise plays everything as normal. Only plays children's songs.
4) Fifth-Grader Practicing for a Recital-Mode. Sorry, had to break with the TNG-theme. This is the crowning glory of the Recital Bot. This mode will play the kind of relatively simple songs that fifth-graders would play for school recitals, but here's the real magic: It will vary the length of notes played by quite a lot, up to a full second longer, and down to just the shortest little toot possible by the hardware. It will go a random number of bars playing the correct notes before it will insert multiple incorrect notes, and start the whole musical piece over again. Randomly, it will completely change keys and time, and will NEVER, I repeat, NEVER make it all the way to the end of a song. Whenever it performs an 'error' and stops, it will play a random swear word through the speaker, and then start over. This mode will go for a minimum of an hour, but no longer than 3 hours.
But yeah, that's my idea for a robot to torture my drunk redneck neighbors with. While I don't know that such a thing would ever get built, I wanted to at least put it out into the ether, so to speak.

Hello everybody,
Many years ago, I loved spending time listening to music on Grooveshark, which had almost perfect recommendations 90% of the time. Unfortunately, the service was shut down, and, funny enough, my very first post on Reddit was about the death of Josh Greenberg: Grooveshark Co-founder Found Dead at 28.
Since then, I've tried many different music services, including YouTube Music, Spotify, Pandora, and others. None of them have worked nearly as well as Grooveshark, especially in terms of library completeness and recommendations. It's quite difficult to find the obscure music I enjoy on any of these services. What annoys me the most is how these platforms start pushing "popular" songs as soon as you stop paying attention, turning into promotion platforms rather than recommendation services.
Ever since Grooveshark closed, I've been searching for a solution to fill this void. Eventually, I realized that the only way it could work is if the streaming service is hosted on the user's PC and plays their own music, just like in the good old days. However, I don't want to simply play songs randomly, I want the music to be recommended based on how much I like each song, similar to what recommendation services do. Therefore, I need a recommendation service that works locally.
I tried to find something similar already built, but I had no luck. There are self-hosted streaming services, but none of them provide any sort of recommendation engine. So, about six months ago, I started developing such a service myself. The main idea is to give users a new way of filtering their own data by using AI to learn what types of data are important to them and to what extent.
One of the main differences between Grooveshark and many other music recommendation services was that Grooveshark didn't use metadata as the basis for its recommendations. Instead, it used sonic analysis, which allowed for much more personalized recommendations. Anagnorisis works in a similar fashion but uses machine learning models to extract embeddings of the music and trains your personal model to estimate how much you would like a song based on your previous ratings.
And It is not only about the music. What I really wish to happen is to have a system that could work with any data on your behalf, and be able to rate sort it as if it was you. Local AI that could help you navigate a wasteful amount of information without any intermediates that can control it. So I plan to implement vector search to, for example, find music similar to what you want to listen to right now and add many more types of data: text, images, videos and so on.
Anagnorisis is fully open-source and allows you to run it locally. I suspect there are still some people that might be interested in a project like this and maybe even provide some feedback.
Here is the project on GitHub: Anagnorisis
And here is an article I wrote about the ideas behind the project in more detail: Anagnorisis Part 1: A Vision for Better Information Management