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Hi. I was born and raised in New Jersey. I have a degree in education. I was a high school mathematics teacher and also a part time college professor. Since then I have moved to Florida and became a home owner that transition into aviation as a career. Currently working from home as an air traffic controller. This shift started when I had free time to study during the pandemic.
I like going to the beach. But unfortunately as a teacher you often stumble upon students and it is very weird and inappropriate to be seen in non professional clothing. I’ve been trying to stop drinking beer. I have a problem with drinking it as a beverage all the time. But now I limit myself to 1-2 cans a day. Now it’s just a nice refresher for when I’m at the beach. Also make sure you clean after yourself and keep the beach clean.
Im married. I don’t have any kids. I can’t actually have kids due to some issues on my end. We are trying though through other methods. Been married for 9 years. I nerd and geek out over mathematics and anything with numbers.
Husband and I are discussing the idea of potentially exploring involving another person (male) in our relationship. Not sure if that’s a weird idea or oversharing. Just at our age, we kinda figured it wouldn’t hurt to explore and be open minded. Have a few ideas. If anyone wants to engage in that topic. Also goes in line with if anyone wants to play Pictionary game. Getting random pictures of me and making comments on it with questions I might have on it.
If anyone wants to converse, I hope you read this whole thing and write back hitting every single point I shared. Dislike getting low effort messages. Hope that’s not to much to ask for.
I failed 1st year, basically i was inelligible to write the university examinations for anatomy, and had to write remidial examinations for physiology and biochemistry to increase my internal marks to become elligible for the university examinations.
After hearing that i was inelligible to write anatomy. i was completely crushed. i thought i felt depressed before but now, i felt beyond crushed. So crushed to the point, i was barely able to concentrate fully on physiology and biochemistry universities and I ended up failing both.
I prepared for a month to give supplimentary examinations for all three subjects but at that point i was beyond burnt out. It didn't help that my family was treating me like my world had ended because I already felt that way (my family is made up of non doctors, im the first doctor in my family). Returned to my college to write the exams but the night before all of these exams, i couldn't will myself to study last minute, that's how mentally shot i was. I would spend the entire previous day before the most important exam of my career sleeping the entire day out of my depression and waking up at 11pm to start studying throughout the night until the exam, and repeat the cycle. until the exams were over.
I ended up failing anatomy by 4 marks and biochemistry by 12.
its the lowest i've ever felt in my life. you see, i've hit many low points in my life, i've always had a terrible relationship with my abusive father, i take therapy for that. he spent all the time until i recieved the results telling me he'd always support me and whatever comes comes. and the moment he found out i failed he fully abandoned me and disowned me (this isnt the first time he's done that). so on top of feeling like the worlds biggest failure for sitting with my junior batch, watching my friends go ahead of me, it feels like rubbing salt into my biggest wounds for the next five years all thanks to a stupid exam.
Clubs refuse to recruit me despite the fact that i'm pretty good at giving interviews and have pretty great skills, my friends (atleast not my closest ones) but ones i thought i had good relations with stopped looking at me properly or coming and saying hello.
Its been a month since i rejoined 1st year, and well thankfully thanks to covid, the batch i've joined is only lagging by 6 months compared to my previous batch. so by december i'll be in 2nd year, when my batch started 2nd year in february.
its just hard to get by everyday and fight how terrible i feel and still show up to class. its impossibly hard to not feel like the most depressed af person in the universe right now
I got in my first company by aggressively applying for any job I saw in job posting sites, didn't think much about the industry nor department I'm applying. It's a good company with a decent starting pay and I grew a lot from the past four years. I don't feel anything for my job, it's just meh. Even my close co-workers notice early on and would comment that I am much suitable to be on a different field. Sayang daw skills ko for my position. I even asked my manager and they told me that even if I climb up the ranks of our department I most likely won't work on the tasks that I'd want to explore. Different department daw. Still, I didn't leave because my only goal is to work and get paid.
Fastforward to now, I quit my job because my boss and manager would always commend my work and say I have a future with the company but company gives very low salary increases. Hindi na pantay ung tasks sa sahod ko. Halos di mo maramdaman. Took a break because the work was exhausting and my boss told me other companies are hell compared to ours so I mentally prepared myself. I remembered what my coworkers told me before and was now thinking if I were to start applying, should I apply for the same industry companies or to a field that I actually find interesting?
When I tried searching for job openings outside my position they always have the requirements that say "3-5 years experience on [said job position]" and/or "must have a bachelor degree of [not my course at all]." I feel that if I'm going outside of my field, I'll start from the bottom again, with a lower pay than my current one. My friends who work in similar field to me would tell me if I applied in the same position for a competing company I'd at least get a 50% increase pay. And compensation was the main reason I quit anyway.
I feel restricted as if I can't leave this career path that I started from random applying I did four years ago if I want a high paying job. Any advise? Are my worries valid or am I just too naive? Should I stick within my field or not?
I feel F1 2016 is the best F1 mobile racing game ever. Please share your opinions in the comments. Features I liked: * Practice sessions * 3 qualifying sessions (Q1, Q2, Q3) * Full length race * Pitstops * 3 tyre compounds (and it varied depending on the circuit. Example: softest tyres in Canada, Singapore and Hardest tyres in Silverstone) * Tyre degradation * Career mode (21 races I guess) * Car was not very easy to drive(compared to F1 mobile racing 2022). It was challenging in some of the circuits
Cons: * AI never gave any space in corners, they always took racing lines. That made overtaking difficult. But it also made it more challenging * AI's tyre management is unreal. They used to set fastest lap when I was about to pit. * In some of the races, AI was faster in races than qualifying. That's funny, their race pace was better than quali pace.
I always set my straight speed low, just to make it more competitive. This gave AI significant straight line speed and made my life difficult when tyres were old
Miss this game now 😔
I (22M) don’t know what to do, I’m waiting for a diagnosis but I think fixing me is too late. I’m behind in life and all my friends. I’ve been unemployed for well over a year and I failed college. And with all my credit card spending in college, my debt is in collections and my credit score is the lowest it can be. If I ever get the meds I desperately need, I’ll be pushed back by several years and things are gonna get way worse before they get better
I’m too dumb for employment and I can’t relate to much people here because everyone drops in the fact that they have a degree or something if the sort. But I have nothing, no accomplishments and no skills.
I have friends on fb who graduated and are living professional independent lives, there is a friend of mine with ADHD and I was supportive person of them and she just graduated and got a job, and I can’t pass part time college classes or hold a job at a grocery store, or have anything from high school, I was a D student and despite the IEP I wasn’t accommodated
I have accepted the fact that starting a self sustaining life and career and adult stuff is just fantasy to me, and I can’t realistically envision myself with such luxuries.
I don’t want a career anymore, I don’t want to go back to school, even if I tried I can’t because my credit score is too low for assistance. I will never get to the stage of buying a car, or a house, or finding an SO. And I’m so fucking mad at this moment I just wanna rip my bomb site of a room apart more
I honestly have no interest in getting my life back together. I’m in too much mental pain, I can’t call hotlines because I have no phone plan
All of this could’ve been prevented if I got a proper DX when I was little
I wanted to graduate and a get a good paying job and follow my dreams and travel the world, now I’m a hopeless knob who’s stuck in a low income house with my dad and everyday is pain, depression, and darkness
I’m too young to have ruined my one shot at life
I give up
Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t
Hi. I was born and raised in New Jersey. I have a degree in education. I was a high school mathematics teacher and also a part time college professor. Since then I have moved to Florida and became a home owner that transition into aviation as a career. Currently working from home as an air traffic controller. This shift started when I had free time to study during the pandemic.
I like going to the beach. But unfortunately as a teacher you often stumble upon students and it is very weird and inappropriate to be seen in non professional clothing. I’ve been trying to stop drinking beer. I have a problem with drinking it as a beverage all the time. But now I limit myself to 1-2 cans a day. Now it’s just a nice refresher for when I’m at the beach. Also make sure you clean after yourself and keep the beach clean.
Im married. I don’t have any kids. I can’t actually have kids due to some issues on my end. We are trying though through other methods. Been married for 9 years. I nerd and geek out over mathematics and anything with numbers.
If anyone wants to converse, I hope you read this whole thing and write back hitting every single point I shared. Dislike getting low effort messages. Hope that’s not to much to ask for.
I am doing my PhD in AI / Machine Learning at some ok Australian Universities right now. And have applied to a few Firms for internships. For now, I am in my final round of interviews with Jane Street, Citadel Securities, and Optiver. No job offer yet, but I think I can at least land one or two of them.
From my research, Jane Street seems wildly better than the other two options. But I am very uncertain whether I can pass the final round or not. So I want to ask here for opinions which firm I should choose. All the roles I am applying are Quant Researcher (aside from JS which is hybrid traderesearcher),
Jane Street: Based in HK.- pro: Low tax, high payroll, low turnover, good WLB, better culture (collab), brighter people and solid internship program.- con: Is there any?Its prob hands-down best choice for me.
Citadel Securities: Based in Sydney- pro: High payroll, more varied assets so better career growth (?), expanding recently, more QR driven (?)- con: Bad WLB and toxic culture (?), tax, high turnover (appears to have last place elimination), intern program seems like a mystery box
Optiver: Based in Sydney- pro: Good WLB, better culture (collab), good intern program- con: Compensation seems to be lower, tax
I am not sure in the case I fail JS but get Optiver / CitSec, which one should I choose? I am leaning towards Citadel for the recent expansion and varied assets they manage. I don't mind 10hr days, esp early career. Ideally somewhere where I grow my career faster is more suitable for me.
I am also happy to hear other advices aside from choosing from these places (e.g. outlook of a career as QR, etc).
Standing and moving still brought the Arbiter a lot of pain. But the Law’s grim enforcer couldn’t let anyone see that weakness. Especially not with the pirate before them and the very same assassin who had nearly killed them weeks before beneath that pirate’s foot.
The Arbiter had only just been cleared for light duty and decided to spend that time with the Officers in charge of watching the pirates Demon ship. They weren’t ADCU since those officers couldn’t be wasted on a simple stakeout. The Arbiter however had been assured the Officers in charge there were the best they had. But not two minutes within the stakeout tent the Arbiter had learned that the pirate Captain had slipped past the officers assigned to tail her. And more disturbingly that every pirate who left the Astaroth had slipped their tails with disdainful ease.
The utter lack of concern had further stoked their fury. According to the officer on duty every pirate that left eventually made a mess of something and stirred up a minor disturbance. And that only a few that left were unaccounted for.
The complete lack of awareness for how shady and suspicious all that should have sounded baffled the Arbiter’s mind. They knew crime and violence didn’t come so naturally to other species as it did for the Arbiter’s human mind. But the failure to make such a basic connection that the pirates were creating distractions so that other pirates could do their work covertly, screamed at incompetence.
That led to the Arbiter learning that all the officers in charge of the overwatch operation were actually low level beat cops and file clerks. Looking into the system used to select these officers the Arbiter learned that they weren’t just incompetent, but so incompetent that the staggering number of negative reports had confused the filing system and had placed them into the highest bracket of trusted officers. The system was made to calculate negative values but couldn’t properly place such incompetent people into their proper bracket because there wasn’t a bracket appropriately low enough to place them into. So instead it simply went past the lowest level and placed them into the highest level.
And of course such poor officers couldn’t simply be fired because the officers workers union would make a fuss. Which meant the SS couldn’t replace these idiots with any slightly more intelligent sapients.
The bureaucratic idiocy was so infuriating that the Arbiter had lashed out at a nearby pole before they could think better of it. The pole snapped at the impact, fell over, and collapsed half the tent with it.
After that little outburst the Arbiter decided to take a walk and calm down. Only to stumble upon the missing pirate captain locked in a life-or-death battle with the very same assassin who had ambushed them just weeks before.
The Arbiter hadn’t been there for the start of the fight, but simple deduction was enough to reason that the assassin had likely initiated the conflict. They had mentioned Astarte’s name on the night of the attack. And the Pirate had no reason to seek out and attack the assassin.
During that fight The Arbiter had barely survived their encounter with the assassin. The assassin’s prosthetic modifications presented a gap in power that the Arbiter just couldn’t bridge. But despite fighting what should have been a one sided battle, the pirate was doing surprisingly well. In fact if the Arbiter was any judge, Astarte seemed to have a slight advantage.
Not in speed, power, or endurance. The assassin’s mechanical body was simply too powerful for a human to matchup. But in skill Astarte out matched the mechanical assassin.
Astarte dodged and weaved without effortless ease, getting past the assassin’s guard to strike at their, or her, mechanical body. If the assassin hadn’t been a machine then Astarte would have won by now, even with the gap in power.
Rachel felt slightly ashamed at her own poor showing against the assassin when compared to Astarte’s fight. The shame then quickly burned into anger as the Arbiter gripped the rifle at their side and pulled it out to try and shoot the assassin. Unlike the Arbiter had been that night, Astarte was wearing that ridiculous dark red armor and had a sword like she was some sort of space samurai. The Arbiter had done well that night, and their lack of superior weaponry had been their only flaw. One that had been amended with the addition of a more powerful pulse rifle.
They tried to line up a shot on the assassin that wouldn’t hit Astarte, when Astarte began to speak. “You wanna know the funny part. Greyson didn’t even care that you were gone.”
Wait, did these two share a past. The Arbiter guessed that old saying about birds of a feather was true. Who was Greyson? Some sort of man they had both known?
“Didn’t even question me about. Just said ‘Zera’s gone, now you will guard my back’” the pirate continued. “Then not even a week later I was second in command and got to sleep in his comfy bed.” The pirate gave her attacker a sloppy lascivious grin.
“And then you killed him like the deceptive whore you are!” the assassin spat, her attacks becoming sloppier with more openings.
Where these two quarreling over a man? The Arbiter felt bile rise into their throat. Two of the deadliest human women they had ever seen fighting over some man they had known. Pathetic. No man was worth that. Especially not whoever this Greyson bastard was given how quickly he had let the pirate into his bed after his first girlfriend disappeared.
Wait, Greyson, pirate, dead. Were they talking about the infamous human pirate, Byron Greyson? The one who had been a menace to the Femeri system, who was responsible for the disappearance of over thirty thousand humans and the deaths of many more? The one whose headless body had turned up one day aboard the drifting remains of the Black Saint? It couldn’t be, right?
But the rise of the Astaroth and Astarte had happened shortly before Greyson’s mysterious death. It seemed too coincidental.
“Of course I did, I refused to be the latest women he ruined and dumped into the gutter. Face it, your days were numbered. If it wasn’t me it would have been him.” The pirate said with a derisive sneer.
A bit callous and mercenary, but if they were discussing Greyson then likely not inaccurate.
The assassin however didn’t see that logic. “LIAR!” she screamed as she flew into a rage.
Then the Arbiter saw the reasoning behind Astarte’s taunts. This assassin was dangerously unhinged, and Astarte was using that to bait her into a trap.
The next sequence of attacks was too fast for the Arbiter to follow. A sword hilt to the face, followed by something launching out of the assassin’s arm. Then somehow Astarte had her other arm in her grip and flipped the assassin over a shoulder. With the assassin on the ground, Astarte quickly pressed one leg to their back, and with the arm in hand began to pull. The assassins sudden ultrasonic scream made the Arbiter vison darken at the edges, and maybe caused their ears to bleed a little.
Then the arm came out with a pop and the screaming stopped.
The pirate looked at the arm for a second, before lifting it above her head and swinging it down into the assassin’s head. The loud conk of metal on metal was enough to startle the Arbiter out of her awe and terror.
The barrel of their pulse cannon lifted up with Astarte centered in its sight “FREEZE!” the Arbiter roared with all their might.
Astarte paused mid swing, looked towards the Arbiter, and then raised both of her hands above her head. As well as the assassins severed arm. “It was self defense.” The pirate said quickly.
The Arbiter could have sworn they saw a flash of red. But it happened so fast that they weren’t sure if it was really there. And if it was then why would the pirates eye flash red?
The eye crossed by a gruesome scar. Did the pirate have a glass color changing eye?
No, her eyes were both clearly moving around and focusing on things like they should. Could it be cybernetic? Those were supposed to be impossible, too complicated to properly miniaturize with current technology.
It was something to investigate.
The Arbiter had been so focused on Astarte that they hadn’t been watching the assassin close enough. In a movement the Arbiter hadn’t seen the assassin threw Astarte off her back before popping up to her feet. Astarte went down onto the ground and the assassin lurched forward to attack her downed foe. But before she could reach the pirate three quick blasts from the Arbiters rifle stopped her in her tracks.
One had winged her side, another went wide. But the third had caught her right where a liver should have been. The assassin stuttered, but wasn’t dead. They dodged the next shot by ducking and then the second by somehow leaping ten meters into the air and onto a window seal. The assassin looked down on the two women and was clearly judging their chances at victory. But with an, admittable impressive, one-handed springlike flip Astarte was back on her feet, sword ready for another round.
The assassin’s strange mechanical face scowled before another impossible jump sent her over a nearby building and out of sight.
The Arbiter relaxed once the assassin was gone, but Astarte didn’t. The pirate turned, grabbed the Arbiters gloved hand, and pulled her into a jog down the open alleyway. “Come on, there’s an open lot nearby. Can’t jump us from there.” She said without looking back as she dragged the Arbiter along.
For a stunned few seconds Rachel stared at the strong hand grasping her own smaller one. But then the Arbiter saw the logic in Astarte’s worry and forced their hand to release the pirate and ran alongside her.
A few times the Arbiter had noticed a thin humanoid shadow leap between the buildings above them, but a quick turn down an alley from Astarte had them moving away from the incoming ambush from the assassin chasing them via roof tops. In no time at all they made it to an open loading dock for a nearby warehouse. Astarte ran into its center and scanned the roof tops, the Arbiter followed suit.
The Arbiter and the Pirate stood back to back, each searching for any signs of the mutual foe.
“There!” Astarte shouted while pointing her finger at a roof top.
The Arbiter stared up, but couldn’t see anything. But following the pirate’s direction they raised their rifle and shot at the edge of the building Astarte had pointed at. The blasts landed and then the crouched figure of the assassin rose up and backed away.
How had the pirate seen her? The Arbiter spared her a glance and saw a second flash of red before the pirate shifted her head.
“You should call for backup.” The pirate stated while still scanning the roof tops.
“To arrest the assassin?” the Arbiter asked before they could think better of it.
Astarte snorted. “Wouldn’t trust any SS to arrest a dead log, let alone Zera. But more witnesses might scare her off.”
Two things stood out in that statement, the assassin’s apparent name, and “SS, is that supposed to be short for station security?”
“Schutzstaffel actually, its just a strange coincidence they line up” the Pirate joked wryly.
The Arbiter scowled “You think the Station security are like the Nazi’s?” The Arbiter’s lessons about the various evil factions during Earths history had left her with nightmares for years. Crucifixion, death by a thousand cuts, blood eagles, and the like had disturbed their six-year-old mind. Their lessons had spent weeks on all the evils humanity inflicted upon each other, all the way until First contact.
“If the kinky boot fits.” Astarte said while examining the Arbiter’s own black boots.
The Arbiter swished their cloak to hide their boots, and the pirates gaze snapped back up to the rooftops. The Arbiter made the call, and the idiots in charge of the tent said they would need a few minutes to ‘locate’ their rifles and arm shields. Why they had to be located in the first place confused the Arbiter? They couldn’t be so incompetent as to not know where their weapons were, right?”
Tense minutes past before Astarte let out a sigh of relief. “I think she gave up.” she then shot the Arbiter an accusing glare “I almost had the bitch. If you hadn’t interfered we wouldn’t have to worry about her coming back.”
"You expect me to stand by while you committed murder?” The Arbiter growled, now stepping back from the pirate and reaching for a set of cuffs.
The pirate frowned, then glanced up as if recalling a distant memory. “I… ugh felt my life was in imminent danger, and feared for my life while facing down a clearly aggressive and violent deathworlder with a weapon. I used whatever objects I could find at the time…I carry no weapons and was forced to use ceremonial objects in crude, and ugh…unusual ways for self defense. I did not think retreat was possible so I acted to end the threat” she said in a bland staccato rhythm of everyone reciting words from memory. Her words obviously citing several different laws pertaining to self-defense.
The Arbiter felt an eye twitch. “The law pertaining to Deathworlder assailants was not intended to include Deathworlder victims.” The Arbiter said slowly.
Astarte shrugged “Union vs. Trevor Philips established that the enforcement of the law was done by the letter of the law, not the spirit. By that ruling and precedent I acted reasonably and was within my rights for self-defense. Any attempt to detain me would result in punitive measures from my legal representation.”
In all their time on the ADCU the Arbiter had never encountered a criminal so well versed in the intricacies of Union law. Some loop holes were well known, and easy for Officers to circumvent in order to attain an arrest. But the Arbiter hadn’t encountered something like this before.
The Arbiter looked down and noticed the sword she still held, red blood from the pirate running down its blade. “So that sword isn’t a weapon?” The Arbiter asked pointedly.
The feline smile that covered Astarte’s face sent shivers up their spine. “My dear officer, as you can notice I am of half Japanese heritage, a hafu if you will. I am dressing in the traditional fashions of my people. The armor, the katana, and the wakizashi are all hallmarks of the samurai I am descended from. None of these are worn for anything beyond cultural heritage. And for that matter, my crew wear the same to honor my ancestry.”
The Arbiter sighed. Astarte’s defense, though blatantly false, was airtight. Arresting her now would only give her ammunition to legally strike back. And with the recent backlash of the Deathworlder crack down the Arbiter could doom Judge’s career. It had been a celebrated move of the last chief, but the knock-on effects of it had resulted in several months of rioting, looting, and political discourse in the heart of the Union. The last chief was forced to step down and Judge took his place and was still trying to reverse the damages. Which was hard with all the precincts fighting him on it. Those officers had too many friends torn apart by Terran criminals to ever let that grudge go.
“Then you may leave the arm behind and be one your way.” The Arbiter ordered.
Astarte blinked, “the arm?”
The Arbiter pointed to the severed arm still within the pirate’s grasp “That is evidence in an on going investigation. LEAVE. IT. BEHIND” The Arbiter explained, growling out the last words slowly. Just because Astarte had likely saved the Arbiter’s life with some quick thinking didn’t erase the fact that she was a person of interest/suspect in the same case.
Astarte glanced down at the severed arm and blinked as if surprised she was still holding it. Then tossed it carelessly onto the ground. “All yours, make sure to check for bugs before plugging it in.”
“Bugs?”
“Computer viruses hidden in its OS. Thing could have all sorts of things hidden within.”
“And how do you know?”
“I don’t. It’s just the sort of thing I would do myself. Try loading it onto a separate server. Oh, and check for small explosives.”
“Danm Deathworlders” the Arbiter growled as they now considered the severed arm on the ground next to a small splatter of Astarte’s blood. She was right, Deathworlders were known for their tricks and traps. Humans especially. During one investigation a load of seized morphine from an illegal clinic had been stored next to an unstable chemical that reacted poorly to the jostling of the transport and destroyed the evidence in a fiery explosion.
Astarte chuckled “Glass stones Arbiter.”
“What?”
“Glass stones, it’s a human malaphor of sorts. I’ll leave the details for you to figure out. Good luck with tracking down Zera, I’d recommend starting with the prison records on Union Station Parox.” She said as she turned aways and strode off. Walking in the opposite direction of the arriving officers, half of which were missing their weapons or shields.
The Arbiter let out a sigh as she observed the most incompetent idoits she had ever seen strut onto the lot without a care in the universe.
“You called us Sir.” The lead Voral said.
The Arbiter took in a deep breath “Yes I did. Ten minutes ago.”
“It was a long walk.” The officer said defensively, no care for the Arbiters growing anger.
“Its only a few hundred standard meters. But that doesn’t matter I encountered an assassin in the midst of their crime. That’s their arm.”
The Voral looked panicked and began to look from side to side.
The Arbiter felt an involuntary eye twitch and clenched her fist. “The assassin is gone.”
The Voral relaxed “So you want us to secure the evidence?” he asked.
That had been the Arbiters plan, but now seeing them mill about aimlessly they changed their mind. “No, secure the area and stay out of CSI’s way. Understood?”
The officer looked offended. “Sir, its just an arm. We don’t need to wait around for CSI, one of my men can bag it right now.”
Patience wearing thin the Arbiter marched right into the Voral’s face. The fact the Officer loomed over her by two meters did little to diminish the Arbiter’s menacing aura. “AM. I. UNDERSTOOD?”
“Yes Sir.” The cowed Voral officer answered with a nervous buzz of his wings.
“Then go.”
Ten minutes later six medium shuttles from the CSI unit, and two small shuttles from the ADCU were on the scene of the lot and in the alley where the Arbiter had stumbled upon Astarte. Edict and Prosecutor began to jump along the rooftops, recreating the assassin’s movements and collecting more evidence.
The assassin’s arm, and the dried sample of Astarte’s blood was collected. As well as fragments of what looked to be a broken glass eye with a micro camera.
They lost the assassin’s trail after they ducked into the inner hull of the station and escaped across the pipes, wires, and support structure of Unity.
Thirty minutes after that they departed for the central precinct. The Arbiter within the darkened confines of the ADCU shuttle felt safe enough to take off the hood. Caleb and Bartolv did the same. They noticed her pensive mood and didn’t disturb her.
It wasn’t lost on her that Astarte knew exactly who this assassin was. And if she hadn’t left those pretty blatant clues about how to identify her then then Rachel would be trying to acquire a warrant to bring her in for questioning. But that still left her with a lot of questions.
And despite the answers she might get, she had the sinking feeling it wouldn’t be enough to see the whole picture. How big was this whole thing?
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Hi. Just joined, and I needed a space to talk about what I've been experiencing for most of my life. I don't know if my mom fits into the description but I don't know how else to address / manage all of this in the long term and I guess I just wanted perspective from a community that's had more experience with this. It's hard to adequately summarise my experience because I've deliberately obscured many memories for the sake of my emotional wellbeing but I want to try. I'm just trying to get the words out of me, so I'm sorry if it doesn't read well.
For as long as I've known I've had a difficult relationship with my mom. It's a lot of different factors. I'm 23 and nonbinary. When I was younger I had a very headstrong personality and I saw my mom as someone who was very similar. She wasn't around a lot, because both my parents worked and my grandmother (dad's mom) stayed with us to look after my sister and I. I don't remember explicitly being very loving to her, although I suppose I must have loved her because I didn't really get too terrible emotionally until I was maybe 13 or so. She was trained as an English teacher, and took a strong hand in my early education. I was reading and writing very early, and I'm graduating college this year as an English major with Honours, highest distinction. I acknowledge her influence in my success. But from what I can remember is she used to make me join her private classes with older students, and we used to clash during those classes because I would question the content and she wasn't happy with that. When I got a bit older and her teaching centre closed down she would do the classes at home with my sister and I to get us to be more educated on current topics, but a lot of those "classes" often devolved into her criticising my dad and his family (less educated than herself) behind their back, and then criticising my sister and I. Don't remember why, but I know I used to run off to the bathroom to cry afterwards pretty often.
It's hazy afterwards. When I was in my teens we continued to have a difficult time getting along. I think it was maybe a lot of disagreements and criticisms. She would tell me I was fat and didn't dress well and that I had a bad personality. My sister often echoed that a lot. She would make us go shopping together and buy clothes that I didn't feel comfortable in. It was doubly hard because I was grappling with my gender identity at the time and suffering from a lot of dysphoria. I remember starting Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club for Literature class and taking my teacher aside and telling her I didn't know if I could get through the class because I had a really difficult relationship with my mother and I found it really hard to get through the book. She was a really good teacher though, she supported me a lot through that time. In 2016, the year I was doing my nationals and graduating secondary school, my mom disappeared. She had joined some kind of religious group and (we believe) gone overseas with them. She made it out like she was going to be gone for 2 weeks, which became a month, which became... I want to say about 9 months. I think it was like 6 months, then she came back for a bit, then another couple of months. Don't remember exactly. She lied to her parents (who are also very emotionally manipulative and difficult... when they love us they love us but they can be very hard to handle when they don't get their way. they loved me and my sister but when they finally had male grandchildren. well.) about where she was and when she would return. They bombarded her with messages. Mom messaged me and told me to tell her parents things about what she was doing, which was difficult because she was also lying to me and the lies didn't match up and they didn't believe. And I couldn't give them the answer they wanted because I didn't know anything. So for a year, one of the most important years of my life, my grandparents made my life hell. They'd message me, they'd come to my school looking for me, they'd take me out to meals and tell me all about how they were going to die soon and that they needed us to have a good relationship and that I should be grateful that my parents never abused me and I should beg, literally get on my knees and beg, my mother to come home. It got so bad that I, being unfortunately emotionally fragile and quite active on social media, had multiple breakdowns on Facebook, which led my aunt (dad's sister) to call my dad and show him what was going on and he had to ask me if I wanted to stop seeing my grandparents.
But mom eventually came back, and we sort of pretended it didn't happen. Case closed. The next couple of years are a big fog in my memory because I was having a really bad time mentally because of school. So I totally don't remember having any major interactions with mom. Which is good actually.
Then I went to uni. I moved into student housing and getting out of the house was so great. At home I shared the bed in mom's room, and my workspace was wherever I could find some space on a table. So to have my own room (half; shared with a roommate) with my own bed and my own table was super freeing. Mom couldn't let me go. She wanted me home every weekend, bought me a ton of stuff I didn't need, asked me for a copy of my room key. She never used it, but I was afraid for a whole year that she would just walk in when she wanted to. These four years of undergrad, I've become a different person, I'm more confident, I came out, made friends, studied hard, figured out how to dress myself, how to do makeup, everything. Being away from her was amazing.
But mom's fallen into a pattern. She's been disappearing again, months at a time, away more often than not. When she comes back she immediately inserts herself into our lives and starts criticising us; how the house looks, how we've been eating. She buys me gifts I don't like, clothes or earrings. Sister and I think she might be in some kind of religious cult but we don't want to get into that. She hasn't had a full conversation with dad in years. I've tried a few times to engage her in conversation about how her actions have affected us and how she's been emotionally abusive but she won't hear any of it. She said she's been to therapy; I don't think it's real actual therapy, she's more aware of how she was emotionally abused by her parents but won't admit that she was abusive to us. From what she says it sounds like she's more open about painting herself as the victim but that she's better than all of it because she never beat my sister and I. Which is a low bar. We had an argument in a Uniqlo about it. Any time she talks about how she was as a parent she makes it out like she's a really great parent because she didn't do any of the things her parents did. I've just stopped trying.
My boyfriend is of a different race and religion (I am not white, but majority race in my country). When I told my parents they were a little weirded out, but mom didn't say anything about it until months later. She just asked me a few questions, and I thought it was fine. We were getting along, we were having ice cream, just the two of us. Then I told her parents. And they lost it. Messaging me really racist things for over a month. Made my aunts speak to me about it. Eventually I had to insinuate that the relationship wasn't serious and that we broke up and I think they bought it. Of course they also messaged mom. And one weekend when I was home she woke me up in the morning to yell at me about it, and she said a lot of really racist things too, and told me to say anything to my grandparents to get them off her back. Not mine. Not a single word in my defense.
I know this whole post is just... things. Just conversations or events. I don't know how to say how she's made me feel for most of my adolescent life. I don't know how to tell you how bad my mental health was. I don't even know if I'm just pretending not to remember things or if I'm blowing things out of proportion or if I fed myself a different memory so well it feels real. I just know I can't talk to her anymore. She recently returned from a two month trip, during which she spent her birthday and mother's day away from us, and she's back to acting like nothing happened, showering me with gifts, insisting that she'll pick me up from whatever event, cooking meals, and I just can't talk to her anymore. I can't love her, no matter if she does love me. I am so tired and worn out and I want to walk away, want to focus on my career and my own development, look after my dad and sister and boyfriend without her and her side of the family in the picture, but I can't. She's my mom. She couldn't even be fucked to commit to coming to my graduation event when I invited her, just said "Get the seat for me and we'll see." I'm going back tonight to share a bed with her again. I'm a better and different person, except when I'm in her presence. I just wanted my mom to love me and support me. Even if I was a difficult teenager. Even if I'm nonbinary and queer and in an interracial relationship. But I can't, I don't know how to fix things or make it better for myself in the long term.
I graduated in 2020 without being able to secure an internship. Since then, my job hunt for roles in my field has been exhausting. I did get a per diem part time role in my field in 2021, but had to leave earlier than I wanted to. The pay was terrible with unstable hours. The commute alone ate up a decent amount of my pay and was super long. What's upsetting is that my coworkers who could afford to stay or live in the city were able to get more experience and get full time roles. Now I feel trapped in low paying part time customer service roles, no matter how hard I try. My desired field is media/entertainment. I am aiming for entry level admin roles. I have had some interviews for full time admin positions inside my field and outside my field. Like so many other job hunters, I've gotten ghosted too many times to count.
I will say I'm not opposed to switching fields at all. Literally whatever role has a decent enough salary I'm okay with. My question is, for anyone who graduated without an internship, did you eventually find work in your field? Or even a decent paying job in a field you never intended om being in? What did you do to better your situation? It just feels impossible to gain experience outside of internships. I've even seen some job postings that don't even count internships as experience. I did make a stride and had a quick career chat with someone who works in my field and gave me some tips. I'm just at a loss of what else to do.Thank you!
So what if (hypothetically speaking) I’ve been at a company for a very short time >a year. And there is a gal there that is 20 years older than me. She’s attractive, caring, great sense of humor, works part time at the place we work at (super super low hours) TECHNICALLY. I’m her supervisor, but she literally works 4-8 hours a week for a discount and something to do, We get along great. Tons of flirty messages back and forth. Some nsfw.
She has a successful career, And I don’t do too bad myself
Should I go for it? Wait for her to retire?
I have another job lined up elsewhere… I’m catching feelings, and I am pretty sure this is more than a booty call. Thanks!
To begin with, I (M22) haven't been in a long-term relationship, partly due to my previous top sporting career. However, I have experienced dating and casual hookups. I've often been told by people around me that I am mentally mature for my age and I agree. I've never been a fan of going out or playing flirting games. Now, I focus on dating women who are genuinely seeking love. I've met a few but none of them seemed to know what they wanted from life or a relationship. If I started to express that I was looking for something serious, they all started losing interest. I probably sounded desperate for today's dating standards.
Approximately three weeks ago, I connected with a woman on a dating app who seemed to be on the same page as me. Our conversations revealed that we are a perfect match, sharing the same ambitions, hobbies, and desires in a partner. Unfortunately, she was ill at the time and then had exams, delaying our chance to meet.
Our conversations took on a relationship-like tone quite quickly, perhaps too quickly given that we hadn't met in person. We developed an already quite caring relationship, which felt strange to me.
2 days before our date she canceled. Her explanation was, she needs time to study and has a lot of work to do these 1,5 months. She overstressed herself, has some personal stuff she needs to fix, and also wasn’t expecting to find someone so fast. It is about 2 months after her only and pervious relationship she ended (that lasted 1 year).
My reaction basically was(but a lot nicer and longer of course), I heard these excuses many times. We haven’t even met, and now you are saying I need to wait another 1,5 above about 1 month already. I am not going to do that, so whatever you dealing with I will support you, but I also hope you are also considering what you are asking of me.
Her reaction after it was more nuanced, and was more like: I am not friend-zoning you. I actually want to go for you, we have a connection I never felt. But I need some time to sort some things out. I will explain later my whole story in a call, but need to finish my deadline first.
Now I find myself more attracted to her. It seems she is genuinely interested in me, but the timing isn't right. I've suggested meeting for low-pressure activities like coffee, to give us a chance to get to know each other better. She has yet to answer it, but I am sure she will be okay with it.
Although we are both good at communicating, I still have my doubts.
So, my question is, how proactive should I be? I've noticed that I've been initiating our texts for the past 1,5 weeks because she's been busy. Where should I set boundaries to avoid causing her stress and protecting my own feelings? I've paused dating others because of my “feelings” for her, but I'm unsure of when and how to draw the line.
25; graduated with a masters in advertising in December 2020. Bachelors in marketing. Division 1 cross country at 2 of the top schools in the country.
Ended up having to take a job in my hometown because of the COVID job scene. Currently in commercial hvac sales account management. A little over 2 years in the role
I always wanted to do creative advertising strategy, but I have been applying to jobs for the better part of the last 1.5 years and had no luck. The places I apply to don’t even give me a chance to vouch for myself or really take any time at all to look at my experience etc. I often get told that I’m in hvac and not advertising.
The whole interview process and learning about these companies has made me kind of hate it and shattered the image I had in my head about the job/industry. It seems to be very low pay high work/stress/hours with somewhat high turnover. It also seems very robotic and like “let’s circle back !!” fake lingo. I’m not sure if that’s just the places I talk to or it’s across the board. I have talked to a lot of places.
So I’m miserable in the small town I live in and would like to move. I’ve dreamed most of my life of living in Chicago. I cannot find a job there no matter what I do. I have tried marketing, advertising, and sales account management. Also construction and engineering companies. I’ve tried reaching out to people on LinkedIn and email. I’ve tried people I know. I’ve had atleast 30 people from ~my network~ give me referrals and often it’s the same old shit of how I don’t have this wildly specific qualification.
I’ve even tried reaching out to hvac places, but many of them are only looking for super experienced people or they are super far out in the suburbs. I’ve also been told my advertising degree disqualifies me from the job, even though I have it now.
So anyway my lease is up at the end of the month and I’ve decided to say f it and try my luck moving without a job. For me the thought of spending another year in the small city makes me question the point of it all. Everybody here is getting married and hanging out with the same friends they’ve had since HS and unwilling to expand. There is no young single ambitious energy. I have enough in savings /investments to pay the lease multiple times over, and I am 100% debt free.
I am not sure what to do with my career now. It feels like all paths lead to a conveyor belt robotic life. I also feel like I have tried everything and can’t even get the conveyor belt job. Honestly at this point I borderline don’t care what I do as long as it’s like remote and pays well. Would also consider an office job if it wasn’t super micromanaged.
Just not sure where to go here. It just feels like all paths lead to going to a job with people who hate their life and I’m going to be another one of them in 20 years
I've shared my thoughts with a few people, but I'm curious what others think.
I've noticed that job postings for software developers tend to have hundreds of applicants in a few days, but other entry level IT roles that I've seen will accumulate just a few applicants in a few days and maybe 60 in a few weeks.
I'm a career changer and I'd like to get into IT sooner rather than later. With layoffs and high levels of competition, would it make sense to focus on non-developer jobs and more on things like helpdesk, cloud admin, etc.? I'm concerned about the low wages, but I'm also concerned that I will not be able to get a developer job for a long time due to the current state of things.
What do you think? Is there a high likelihood of getting a developer job after we graduate? Or will it take additional years of practice before a newbie even has a chance?
Background: I graduated undergrad in 2020 degree in finance. Went straight to get my masters in Human Resource Management. I have been a data analyst in people analytics at my organization (retail, around 30k employees) for a little over a year now. I am contemplating making the switch to the HRBP team (supporting corporate functions).
Any advice on this switch? My current role is extremely low stress and I usually work 9:30-4 pm. That aspect is great but there’s not a ton of nuance and I could see myself getting bored of the role relatively quickly. My day to day is mostly making data products (power bi dashboards, reports, etc) for HR leaders and their teams. This is great but I also have an itch to be in a position where I’d actually be using these data products to make decisions and drive strategy. Currently I make the products and never look at them again unless edits need to me made.
Having a hard time deciding what is the right career move and if I should make the switch to HRBP or stay in people analytics and climb the ladder there.
Thanks in advance!