These situations objectively suck. One thing that’s stuck with me is asking: will this still matter in 10 years?

It doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck, it doesn’t mean you don’t have to deal with it, but it does mean “this, too, shall pass”, and you’ll still be okay on the other side of it.

Is its financially feasible (or maybe barter with something else), to have a sitter just to give yourselves an evening or weekend afternoon off? Just a few hours where you’re not working and not being parents. Have a park or coffee date together.

I wanted to change careers to something totally different and took a course and found the maths beyond my capability to understand. That was when I found my ceiling. And you know what? That’s okay. I tried, and now I know I can’t do it. I won’t live the rest of my life wondering “what if” or regretting that I didn’t go for it. Instead, I changed directions and I’m about to (hopefully) graduate from a different masters.

In a similar vein, during my undergrad, I took one single class in 3D animation. Up until that point, I thought I would love it. Turns out I HATED it. I could do it, but I hated it. I’m glad I took that class, otherwise (again), I may have spend the rest of my life thinking about this ideal career and regretting not going for it. Instead, I’m so relieved that I never had to do it again.

I know a couple who speak French and Spanish, and English is the majority language here. They speak and reply to each other in their own language. It’s amazing and I love it.

You may be interested to read about the scheme of intellectual and ethical development by William Perry. This website has it discussed only in terms of cognitive development, but I think you’ll see how it directly correlates to ethical development: https://neurolaunch.com/perrys-theory-of-cognitive-development/

I’m going to be the “um, akchually” person:

Lunar calendars, like the Chinese and Jewish ones, have leap months for the same reason the Gregorian calendar has leap days: to keep our seasons in line. It’s an entire, extra doubled-up month. However, one would say that year has 13 months, not 12. (At least for the Chinese calendar, not sure about the Jewish one.)

I loved opening flip phones with a flick of the wrist, and the physical action of ending a call by closing it.

As cheers_queer has experienced, “flood” means something specific in insurance. It’s wise for everyone to check your specific policies (even if you’re not currently experiencing water in your home). Water that comes up from your pipes/sewer, fresh water that enters your home over land, and salt water can be referred to and covered (or not covered) separately, depending on your specific policy.

My dude, Trump worship doesn’t make sense to begin with, and yet, here we are. You can’t use logic and reason in a situation that has no logic and reason.

May I suggest an iPod shuffle; there isn’t even a screen to interface with.

I’m a fairly reasonable, educated (masters), Millennial (i.e., have some life experience). I think it could be a false flag conspiracy. The fact that I think it’s possibly credible that the current president of the USA could have arranged (or, rather, he had it arranged) a fake threat on his life is an indication that the office is the president and the US government around it has no credibility. The lies every day that sometimes contradict not only actual evidence, but what their own offices said just the day or days before. Not to say anything of the moral bankruptcy and corruption on display every day.

If it’s real (and I’m not saying it is, only that it is not outside the realm of credibility, given what we’ve seen), there are many die-hard Trumpers who, essentially, worship him. The images of him being embraced by Jesus and then as Jesus were not the end of him, were they? We only need to consider J6 where people expected to take a took a day off work, overthrow the government and maybe kill some Democrats, and then what? Return to work the next Day? They expected Trump to be installed as president and face no consequences.

More recently, look at ICE. Pro-Trump “irregular immigrants” still expect Trump to personally exempt, protect, and pardon them.

Trump has and does pardon true and real criminals. If I were a Trump worshipper, and told he personally asked me to do this, and he would use his power to protect me, I would probably to it. Only I’m not a delusional Trump worshiper.

I understand where you’re coming from, and it wouldn’t apply in this specific context (where locals had rejected the poor boy), but in a general sense, the idea is to partner or invest in such a way to enable locals to lead the change efforts, or at least have a significant stake and voice.

In the business world, there are often silent investors who back entrepreneurs. Their financial input make a business possible, but leave the operations to the entrepreneur. The investor backs the entrepreneur, and they both profit.

It’s a different model and it takes more time and effort to find local partners to build up their capacity over time, but enabling locals will get stronger long-term results for the recipients of charity. It’s the difference between providing food packages to people and giving people agricultural tools to provide food for themselves in the long run. Obviously, in a situation of dire need, providing food is an immediate need, but only providing food instead of also providing tools keeps the recipients in a dependent situation. If they’re dependent on foreign charity forever, it’s just another form of control and colonialism.

What this woman had done, by caring for this poor boy, was long-term investing in him. Now he has an education and will be able to work and care for himself.

Personally, I’m in favour of “mamsir”, which is the obvious compounding of “ma’am” and “sir”. The Internet tells me it’s used in the Philippines, but I could have sworn I first heard of it being used in India 🤷‍♀️

If I know someone is a terrible person, I can’t enjoy their work. Besides not wanting to financially support them, I like to put myself in an author’s, actor’s, writer’s shoes when I watch/read stuff.

That said, I don’t purposefully look into people’s lives; I’m not into celebrity gossip. But sometimes a person is such an outlier or just so vocal about it that it’s unavoidable.

Truly, without sarcasm, I invite you to read the gospels and actually get to now about Jesus. The shortest is Mark and can be read through in one evening.

So credit card issuers are bad now?

There’s too much to keep track of these days.

Bloodletting is therapeutic… for some very specific conditions. For example, hemochromatosis, where the body has too much iron, and there has been some preliminary study that blood donations are a way to reduce the amount of PFAS in blood.

But everyone has PFAS in their blood; not every male has (beyond normal) phimosis.

I never really got into tea because I always found the flavour disappointing compared to its aroma. But I recently tried yerba maté, which isn’t a tea but definition, but is similar. It’s made from the leaves and stems of Holly and has a strong, bitter flavour that definitely does not disappoint. It’s enjoyed in places like Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Brazil. Now I start my day with a mug of coffee, then sip on maté the rest of the day.

About cars, and not necessarily designed poorly, but definitely designed by a man for men: cars that, by default, automatically, immediately unlock all doors when the engine is turned off. A man might be car jacked or robbed, a woman might be car jacked, robbed, or raped.

(Of course men can be raped too, but it’s not as likely to happen by a strange woman threatening violence than a woman is to be raped by a strange man threatening the same.)

Remembering birthdays is a reflection of how much someone cares about birthdays. There’s no need to read anything more into that.

Many people (this thread is an example) are either completely indifferent to birthdays or even dislike them. To us (I’m indifferent) birthdays are totally pointless and basically a fact related to identification, like a student number or social insurance number. I remember my student and social insurance number because I have to, in order to function at school and in society. I don’t ask anyone else’s student numbers because it’s entirely pointless and useless information to me.