I'm excited to announce my weekly open island event on my Citycore-themed island, EE, in Animal Crossing: New Horizons! 🌟
This event is: Each week, a different shop with new items and items relating to the shop will be featured.
Shops I will be hosting (in order): 1. KK Record Shop: KK Slider records. 2. Labelle Shop: Latest Labelle fashion. 3. Chrissy & Francine's Shop: Weekly magazine items (only selling featured items). 4. The Marshmallow Café by Marshal: Cozy Roost items. 5. The Posh Paw by Raymond: Wedding and fancy items. 6. Oven Delights by Melba: Various fencing. 7. Reneigh Flowers: Limited supply of flowers. 8. The Punch Bowl: Restaurant items. 9. Redd’s Pawns: ??? (Random series items). 10. Shopping Mall: Random items, including: - 5 types of food recipes - Christmas stuff - Arcade stuff - Leif’s plant items - Katrina’s Kasino with Pocket Camp items and bells 11. Home Harmony: Rugs, wallpaper, and flooring by Saharah. 12. Kicks: Sports shop with shoes and bags (only selling featured items). 13. Maple’s Library: Selling handheld items. 14. Cyrus and Reese Workshop: Customization kits. 15. Ava’s Farmers Market: Fresh produce and farm items. 16. Étoile’s Laundromat: Bathroom items. 17. The Star Vault: Star fragments and Celeste DIYs.
You might’ve noticed the magazines. (like on Kicks and C&F) I will post the magazine pics along with the shop event when it comes.
This week's shop theme is KK Record Studio Next week is Labelle Store
Exciting News: I’ll be completing my school on my ACNH island soon, and to celebrate, I'll be hosting a minigame each month!
Can't wait to see you all there at 8pm 1 June EST and share the fun. Happy shopping! 🛍️
P.S. Got any ideas for Redd’s Pawn item series or special requests? Drop them in the comments below!
P.S.S. My island is still in progress so no judging >_<

I just got out of school, myquals 10th 75% and 12th PCB 67.9% I really wanted to get into design after 10th but I was really not allowed to. Two years made me severely depressed because I didn't like studying science at all. No matter how much I tried to get into it. The fact that I thought I'd be doing this still after school depressed me more. Recently I was guided by my teachers that I could do very well in English and I thought about it really, made me realise I wouldn't mind doing this in the longe run but all the people and basically the posts around me are like English only gets you a teaching job. Which I don't mind, but it's not the ultimate goal. I researched and apparently people do stuff like content writing, copywriting, work in publishing houses, blogging and there are some who do marketing and PR stuff later. But I'm still scared.
What should I do? Take a leap of faith, do honours in literature, afterwards either I go for mass com/journalism or stuff like that. Or..listen to my parents and do graduation in science itself? Though that will surely be a rough road for me.

I just graduated with a Bachelor in Arts Studies but have been thinking about getting into the dermatology industry and going to PA school. I have been interested in skincare and skin health for most of my life but never thought I was smart enough to pursue a science or medical related degree. I have no prerequisites done since I did a B.A. and I have no patient care hours whatsoever. I graduated cum laude with about a 3.3 GPA and I’m not sure if my background will give me a good chance of getting admitted to a PA school but I guess my prerequisite grades could change that. What could be the best way for me to get my foot into the door? Would it be too late for me to start now? Are there any informational groups or organizations I could be a part of?

I’m in college and my school currency is empty, so I have to pay for food with my own money. I was hoping that someone can send me some money to buy groceries.

This is a longish article; I'm going to add bolding to the sections I feel are most interesting to our community here:
Archive copy
The Kansas City Star
Kansas City, Missouri · Thursday, March 27, 1997 · Page 109/A-1

As the world turns weird

By MATT CAMPBELL
and DONNA McGUIRE
Staff writers
The comet Hale-Bopp is a harbinger from "space brothers" calling us to shed our containers and join the astral plane.
Believe that if you wish, but is it any reason to kill yourself?
Something along those lines apparently inspired 39 people to take their lives in a rented Southern California mansion. Religious scholars and cult watchers say we can expect more bizarre ⏤ though not necessarily lethal ⏤ behavior on the fringes of society.
"As we get closer to the millennium, there is a greater and greater anxiety among the human race...," said Philip Lucas, editor of Nova Religio, a journal on alternative and emergent religions. "More and more people are looking for answers or a plan."
Cults are as ancient as human society, as is speculation about cosmic meanings. But the people who committed suicide this week apparently were high-tech believers ⏤ computer programmers
See AS, A-20, Col. 1
"They believe the Earth is impure. Therefore it is a rational decision to try to escape from it." -Phillip Lucas, editor of Nova Religio journal
Archive copy
The Kansas City Star
Kansas City, Missouri · Thursday, March 27, 1997 · Page 128/A-20

As millennium nears, world turns weirder

Continued from A-1
who earned their living creating Internet Web sites under the name Higher Source.
It is unclear whether the cult depended on its World Wide Web site Heaven's Gate to recruit converts. If the medium is the message, however, the Internet has proved that it can have a mystical aspect.
"The computer is a tool for communicating in ways that we'd never imagined even five years ago," said Tim Miller, and associate professor of religious studies at the University of Kansas, "and people with religious interests have jumped on it just like everyone else has.
"Of course, the basic fact of the Internet is the way you communicate without censorship or intervention. That means, inevitably, people outside the mainstream are going to see this as a real opportunity."
There will always be cults and collections of people who believe things that the rest of us find bizarre. The California sect members left messages that they expected to rendezvous with an alien power traveling in a spaceship in the wake of Hale-Bopp's tail. To accomplish that, they had to leave their "containers," or bodies, behind.
As the millennium approaches, more groups might fret about the apocalypse. Indeed, that happened in Europe the last time we approached a millennium. Just approaching the turn of a century has sparked the same rhetoric.
But sociologists say that doesn't mean people should expect large numbers of similar mass suicides in the next three years.
"Cult activity with these kinds of outcomes is extremely rare," said Mary Jo Neitz, a sociology professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia. "There is a tremendous number of religious groups and cults out there. But this is a very unlikely event, that it would end in mass suicide."
Miller, who has studied cults for 25 years, agreed there is no indication that ritual suicides will become the vogue of the late 1990s.
"There have been isolated instances of mass suicides throughout history for religious or political purposes," Miller said, "but no, I don't see it as a trend. . . . Such isolated events are too small to generalize."
There is a lot of interest in Hale-Bopp among so-called New Age movements. A group called Cosmic Maya, for example, preaches that the comet is bringing an "auspicious and timely message" to humanity, perhaps even returning part of the human soul lost long ago.
But the movement's tenets, at least as printed in a New Age publication called The Edge, contain no reference to alien life, transporting to the stars or ritual suicide.
"I just don't think that there is any direct lesson to be gained" from the California case, Miller said. "Will there be other groups that commit mass suicide? Who knows. To me, the issue is can you identify them in advance. And I'd say emphatically not."
William Svoboda, a pediatric neurologist in Wichita and a scholar of cult behavior, said cults typically revolve around a central leader who is answerable to no man.
The reported young ages of many of the people apparently involved in the San Diego cult makes sense to cult watchers. The people most susceptible tend to be at transition stages, such as between school and career.
Svoboda said ritual suicide usually occurs when a cult's leader becomes sufficiently paranoid to seek his or her own escape from life.
"And unfortunately, he drags his followers along with him," Svoboda said. "The pathology begins with the leader."
However rare such extreme behavior is, Lucas noted that even people in mainstream businesses, religions and organizations can go off the deep end.
Jim Jones was a Pentecostal Christian before he created his own dogma and led more than 900 followers to death in Guyana in 1978.
Missouri and Kansas have not been immune to cult activity:

• In 1989, Jeffrey Lundgren, a defrocked lay minister of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Independence, killed five members of a former Independence family at a religious commune in Ohio. He was sentenced to death.
  
• In 1991 five persons affiliated with a religious group in Russell Country, Kan., abruptly left the country for Israel. The group apparently was inspired by UFO sightings and linked them to religious portents.
  
• In 1992, a religious cult outside Liberty was exposed when a woman told police that leader Nelson DeCloud, who claimed a direct link to God, had raped and sodomized her. He was sentenced to 220 years.
  

"Becoming involved in demanding religious activity often gives people stability in their lives," Neitz said, adding that it remains rare for them to commit suicide.
Not everyone who joins a cult will remain, either, she said.
"There is this image of cults as having mindwashing or brainwashing activities, that once you get involved, you can't get out," she said. "The data doesn't bear that out. The rates of defection are actually quite high."
Svoboda estimated that there are 3,500 to 7,000 cults in the United States. He said those in the Midwest tend to be oriented toward deeply conservative or survivalist beliefs.
By contrast, Lucas said, "the UFO-contacting groups, of which Higher Source appears to be one, believe the 'space brothers' are...contacting people on...Earth to give them spiritual wisdom or a plan on how to survive.
"These groups are often neognostic," Lucas said, referring to a belief in salvation through knowledge. "They believe the Earth is impure. Therefore it is a rational decision to try to escape from it. By killing themselves physically, they're not entering oblivion, they're making their transit."
Many cult watchers believe computers and the Internet are simply new ways to spread religious messages in the modern world. Countless Web sites are maintained by mainstream religious groups.
Svoboda said some cults actively recruit on the Internet. But he said most computer chatter about cults tends to be warnings from ex-cult members who have escaped.
Internet watchers also say cults are far less prevalent a threat to naive browsers than are financial schemers or deceptive romantic suitors.
But Lucas speculates that people most comfortable with the Internet and technology in general may be predisposed to accept theories of more advanced civilizations from space.
Neitz doubts that computer wizards would be more predisposed than others to join cults ⏤ or that cults could recruit well over the Internet, a format that lacks the necessary face-to-face connection.
"Social ties are important," Neitz said. "People get recruited into cults through other people they know. There has to be a personal connection made and some tie established."
There is another article from the same newspaper on the Heaven's Gate tragedy, with an image from the group's original website along with a picture of the meat wagon collecting the corpses here if anyone is interested.

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I want to hear others' experiences bc I'm very contradictory with this. Sometimes I feel under-sensitive and crave stimulation. I love loud music and noisy environments. When I go to clubs or gigs I get bored if the sound system isn't loud enough and the crowd isn't aggressive enough. I love movement as well, like long car drives and walks. I unintentionally spent 5 hours walking around a forest the other day - just let myself get lost and didn't notice how much time had passed until it started getting dark. Pain doesn't bother me much and I love weight training. I was never into a specific sport (besides maybe boxing) but I love fitness or any kind of physical activity. I love physical touch as well but my friends would never guess it bc I generally try to avoid being clingy or annoying.
On the other hand I can withdraw completely and become totally non-verbal and still. I honestly hate this side of myself because I feel sleepy and disconnected, and the smallest things upset me. Certain foods and smells used to bother me so much that I was misdiagnosed with OCD as a kid. I always hated eating around other people, which concerned pretty much everyone that knew me - some of them thought I was anorexic but mostly people just found it weird. A lot of my pre-school teachers would regularly try to force feed me which made it worse. These days it's much less extreme - I can usually cope fine with bad smells or uncomfortable clothes. I still can't stand any kind of sudden loud noise and avoid movies with jump scares like the plague.
It's weird bc I'm totally monotone and expressionless around some people but aggressive and over-engaged around others. Both sides are weird and I wish I could just behave like a regular human being. I always try to act nice and normal but it's hard.

For context, I’m a computer science student who is switching careers. I have a full time job in an unrelated field, and I don’t have the means to quit my job for a short term internship.
I have an interview soon for a web developer position, but the job would be creating custom WordPress themes. In a better job market I would just hold out for something in software engineering and not WordPress, but I’m wondering if I should consider taking this opportunity at least while I’m in school.
My biggest hesitation is that I don’t want it to hinder my career growth, especially when it comes to pursuing software engineer roles. There are other factors which make it tempting though.
Pros: -Can put Web Developer on my resume -They offer tuition assistance -Pay will likely be slightly higher than what I make now -It is a well-respected company in my city -They have a software engineering team that I could potentially move to later
Cons: -Stigma around WordPress -Spending time learning technologies that will not benefit me in the future
Obviously the pros list is longer, but I’m not sure it outweighs the cons. I’m curious what people think.
Thanks in advance

I constantly go to this chooks-to-go stall after I hit the gym and I've noticed that there's this kuya who is always assigned for the afternoon shift. At first, our conversations are just the typical customer-vendor type of small talk where I tell him my order, go to the counter, and pay for it, then show him the receipt to get the chicken and I'm gone. This has been the routine for several months, but kanina there was a bit of latency issue with serving the order since he's like trying to saing pa the rice. So, in an attempt to resort the dead-air, he initiated a conversation. He told me how he's always noticed that I buy the same stuff every time I visit the kiosk and surveyed if I have noticed anything different from the typical flavour. I do had some epiphanies with like the sauce (for some reason this chooks-to-go serves a sauce as opposed to their tagline: "Masarap kahit walang sauce") wherein sometimes it's sweet and sometimes it's like garlic-ish flavored. He pointed out that sometimes he experiments with the spices he lagay to the sauce and see to it if the customers prefer one over the other. I'm not really sure how many spices or flavor options they offer but it is what it is. I did share my sentiment about my experiences and then he started yapping about spice combinations and how it influences the flavor of the chicken or liempo. It was actually quite fascinating since in a typical manner, I usually expect these kinds of franchises to have a well established recipe on how they create and serve their food but I guess there is a skill factor that could influence the outcome of the finished product. It's the same observation I could infer with starbucks in which different branches may offer the same menu, but the overall quality of the coffee being served is dependent to the way the barista prepares it. I'm not really an expert in culinary arts so to be honest I did assume the process of serving chicken to be like a product of a well-automated step-by-step cookbook.
However, upon knowing more of kuya's everyday and past experiences within the industry, I gained some sort of insight behind the "science" of preparing a chooks-to-go chicken. He made kwento about how he used to work in a local lechon store within his neighborhood and how it made him curious about the idea of roasting (or smoke cooking? I'm not sure what's the right terminology here) as well as the techniques to maximize "umami" (not the actual term he said, kakanood ko to ng japanese food reviews eh ahaha). Furthermore, he expounded on other factors like temperature, timing, proper ways of cutting and so on. I'm not really sure if he had formal education on these topics but the display of mastery as if he owns the craft is something I found surreal ig. I mean, he didn't really show mathematical formulas involving thermodyanmics or food chemistry but the story telling is enough to leave me in awe. I waved my goodbye to kuya and told him: "bukas ulit!", in which he replied: "copy sir! try mo yung sauce". Upon going home sa condo, I opened the take-out order and first tasted the sauce. It's a different experience this time as the flavour is more on the stronger sweet side. My KFC gravy buraot / Mang Inasal chicken oil spamming monkey brain exclaimed that I should've asked for extras but it was well enought to satisfy my curiosty. I find the experience wholesome and it made me wonder how the things that what we typically render as mundane jobs can have a sprinkle of creativity within them and people's passion on what they do really produces a story to tell.

Hi all I'm an international student enrolling into the Bsc of Science majoring in Neuroscience at USYD in 2025 and I had a couple questions for the current/past students to prepare for the course and clarify my doubts. 1. How much Chemistry knowledge is required especially for Neuropharmacology, would I have a harder time if I took fundamentals of chemistry 1A instead of the normal 1A? 2. I took Chemistry for IGCSEs but not A levels/IB, would you still recommend me to take the foundation chemistry course? 3. What kind of math is used throughout the course, I'm assuming that calculus and statistics knowledge is expected and applied especially throughout the labs? What proficiency should I attempt to reach regarding maths before starting. 4. Is it worth taking the Advanced level 3000 topics, to what I have seen all it gives is an opportunity to do lab work. I have no experience doing actual lab work outside of the typical secondary school projects so I don't know what the experience is like. Cohort stats I'm assuming the cohort size would fluctuate depending on what module you would be taking. Especially as you progress from the level 1000 modules to the 3000s. 5. How big is the actual cohort of neuroscience majors

1. Are the majority of the students that you meet Pre-Med/Nursing or full on neuroscience majors? Also what are the demographics like such as domestic vs international students

Cephalapod Genesis
The pharoah ejaculated into the river and in the sand the sperm found refuge and grew into papyrus. This an example of genesis.
Vampyrapods are the first intelligent species to live on this planet predating the dinosaurs. They came here somehow. They did not evolve on this planet. Perhaps just an ejaculated sperm from another being landing in the water. The direct offspring of this cephalapod is the modern octopus. Octopus are responsible for nearly every animal genesis on earth including humans and subsequently man made inventions and accomplishments. Octopus taught trees to fruit, destroyed the dinosaurs through becoming tapeworms, and even walked to the moon. Some of the animals you may recognize from the cellular genesis may have fused with the other local staples such as canine, equine, and feline, and reptile as well as temporarily the pachyderms in post-actualization causal genesis. This can be done by mating with, killing, eating, dying, being eaten, or simply a laying of hands or physical actions. Octopus only live for about 4.5 years of our relationship with time, but they have beaten death through a mix of telepathy and cannabalism. They've also mastered time travel. There are only 3 actual beings here. Others died in getting here and are fossilized. 2 males and 1 female survived. I call them Jack, Seth, and Claire. This is why the genesis had to completed this way as any direct offspring would not work. because theyve have infinite time to complete it, theyve walked over every inch of the planet and affected every species. In fact our own existence is simply the echo of the combined knowledge of the cephs. We are an amalgamation like the 'too much good stuff' guy from am/pm commercials. Make a bird with your hands. ¿Where are the beaks? The latest project is to use genetic science in order to bring back the mammoth and obtain a sixth digit from its feet. Should happen around 2027. When the vampyrapods first encountered life here it was eating their tentacles. So the first genesis occured in the offspring of those that ate of the tentacles. This is why modern cephs only have 8 limbs. The first language period is Enochian. A language of the eyes and limbs. Through different manipulation of limbs and eye fluctuations communication was made. After a while though telepathy became the established communication.
Here are some examples but not all of cephalapod genesis:
• Spiders (rare from trilobyte mix, had to go back in time to accomplish) (they had to avenge the original vampyrapods from being eaten from early organisms, thisnis how scorpions were able to evolve) • Mango (foilage and ceph mix. Ceph hung from a tree upside down) • Star fruit (the tree missed the octopus and tempted it to return) • Pinecone ( the bite marks of ceph beak eating the fruit of the trees) • Toucan (the beak formation from ceph in flux probably consuming a failed aviary) • Peacock (feather formations still in flux from limbs partial fusion) • Salamander (reptile/chameleon mix) (skin breathing evolution) •Sloth (feline and foilage mix) • Mistletoe bird (octopus ate a mushroom) • Lyrebird (mirage, digitage, and aviary from peacock and pheasant. Mastered the art of sound mimickry to develop better auditory communications) • Dung beetle (rolling backwards the earth through time) • VW bug (trunk up front) (mirage, digitage, pachyderm mix) (invented higher than the model T but arrived later in time) • Goliath bird-eating tarantula ( set a web to catch a bird which did not exist fully until the web was cast. When the spider consumed the bird the psuedo cannabalistic action resulted in a poison tree frog) • Snakes (a ceph lost its mating limb for some reason in a mirage mix experiment) • venemous snakes (a snake ate the eggs of its own offspring)(the cursed dinosaur souls live inside these) • Gumby (using hands to mold clay made a show about being an octopus) • Chameleon (reptile, ceph, foilage, mirage mix)(a ceph was purposely eaten by a komodo dragon to telepathically send a reverse osmosis of its makeup inside its body to another ceph that was attempting to kill the dinosaurs in the past. How they programmed the tapeworm to destroy them)

• Human organs (strife and love and tapeworm mix. Impregnating a mix of canine feline equine, ceph, pachyderm, reptilian, mirage, digitage, foilage, strife and love through years of experimentation lodged themselves systematically into more and more advanced versions and became functional in each iteration) • Sumi ink tattoo ink any ink really • The written word (anemone, sea urchin, porcupine quill, Bird feather and ink. Papyrus) • Floppy disk (suction cup on a piece of mail specifically a bill and the suction cup on the plastic window) • Cd, dvd, blu ray (laying of hands on a television screen) • Television (just a series of ceph exploring life through the inside of a glass tank with mirage and digitage mix) • Movie theater ( same but aquarium instead) • Papillon (love + insect from trilobyte and ink and papyrus needed training wheels to learn how to fly) • Taser (digitage mix of the two extra original tentacles lost from vampyrapod with mix of electric eel which was a detached limb of an octopus that had achieved ball lightning static existence) • Wisteria (ceph and foilage mix) (needed the seeds to play mancala or something) • Water strider (walked on water) • Lunar lander (digitage) (tapeworms in humans directed construction, the first electronic component gestalt high enough to become digital) (a tree really wanted to go to the moon) • Champagne cork (Ate some bark, vent plugged up and had to pee really bad) • Electrostatic Ball (attempting time travel, a ceph was meditating in complete non movement inside a digitized mirage flashing irridescence until it passed away) • Ball lightning (time travel attempt Same ceph tried a pure digitage and mirage mix) • Gnarwal (chameleon tongue, mirage and pachyderm) • Light bulb (ceph + mirage + digitage mix) (octopus crawled into a mirage jar and was irridescent) • Liquor bottle (octopus got stuck in a fulgarite and died temporarily trapping its soul in reflection but the invention of cork escaped it) • Silly string (mirage mix) (angry octopus sprayed another with diarhea from its vent) • Tapeworms (had to brave a walk into a volcano and die. As the octopus melted while running, it evolved the turkey, turkey vulture, vulture, and was just a slithering worm by the time it was engulfed by lava) • The Ten Commandments (vampyrapod fossils brought by a tapewormed moses to show people and try and explain the religion) • Dumbo (actually just a tiny cute octopus) • Hydra from capt america (introducing the public to idealogy of cephs) • Tobacco leaf (the laying of hands on deciduous plantlife, a gift to the early iterations of human) • Cow (equine ceph and pachyderm mix) essentially the Orca ate the Octopus, in its 4th stomach it finally died and so when the cow who has 4 stomachs manifested it came with udders symbolic of the octopus genesis in post actualization-causation • Rapa nui. The end of time. (Great stone heads disembodied) (mirage and strife)the final resting place. A graveyard. A place of rest always available

I was just in the recent post about small annoyances and I was about to comment on something SK12 does and realized that she no longer does it. She used to baby talk almost half or more of her conversations, but as I was thinking about it, I realized she no longer does.
I’m one that if I focus too much on the negative things that annoy me, they fester like a wound. Of course we need to vent and I’m not at all criticizing that other thread, but I wanted to also put up a discussion that allows us to also. Mention the good moments. Let’s discuss the things that, despite the faults and annoyances of BM and SKs, they did something positive and good. I’ll start…

• DH has been going through cancer treatments and we’ve had to be gone for weeks at a time a couple times. BM has willingly taken the SDs 10 & 12 without any issue. She’s a complete narcissist so I know she’s probably posting on social media with a lot of “look at me, I’m a great mom” but I don’t care what her motivations are, just that she hasn’t made our lives difficult through this.
  
• SDs alway tell us how good the food is here and that we’re much better cooks that BM. They’ve even told BM this. 😁 Since I’ve been doing all the cooking in recent months, I see this as quite the compliment!
  
• SD12 has been randomly helping to pick up things. I feel like we’ve been really hammering the idea of seeing what’s in front of them, dishes, dirty clothes, etc., It seems to be finally happening.
  
• We started a large kitchen remodel before DHs cancer diagnosis that is largely finished. We had planned on a rather big island and during the renovations, that island almost got cut down in size and I had to “fight” to keep it. I envisioned it as a gathering place for our blended family (3girls between us) and I didn’t want to sacrifice that dream. After 6 months, it has become EXACTLY. SKs come home from school and sit there and talk about their day, rather than running to their video games. My daughter (18) bakes and cooks with me and makes muffins for her step sisters all the time. It’s really brought our family together during a difficult time.
  

-SD10 shares proud moments with me looking for affirmation and signs that I’m proud of her.
Those are just a few. Sometimes I need to remind myself of the good things so I don’t focus on the ones that annoy me. It’s far from perfect and there are definitely times I wish SDs were here less or that we had more time for just us. This stepparent thing isn’t for the faint of heart!

I'm a double undergrad major in Biology and an undecided second major, which I am trying to narrow down. I'll be applying to graduate schools in the science field. I want to be a more competitive, and perhaps more unique, applicant.
Should I continue with the Ling/Spanish track (to show my analytical skills and get a degree from our highly-ranked Linguistics program)? Or take a pure Spanish major (to prove and improve my Spanish fluency)?

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I'm starting year 1 of my IB Diploma Program next year. Here is my finalized course selection for IB:
HL Biology
HL Chemistry
HL Environmental Systems & Societies
SL Math AA
SL Spanish B
SL Language and Culture
I'm hoping to get advice on what I should do to prepare myself for IB over the summer before the start of the school year, especially since I'm taking two brand new IB courses: Language and Culture and ESS HL. I know ESS HL will start next year but please talk to me about your experience with Language and Culture or ESS SL.
Additionally, I'd also be happy to receive any information on any study tips as well as any websites or apps that help with time management seeing as I have chosen to do double science HL. For those of you who are already doing it, do you have tutors? If so, how effective are your tutors in helping you reinforce your understanding of the content taught in class?
Finally, any tips on preparing for Spanish B? Do you have any resources? It's the class that the upperclassmen at my school complain about the most. My current teacher (who is also teaching IB Spanish) said that I'll get a 7 but other people who were told that they would get a 7 also found it extremely hard.
Thank you so much.

Just received an offer of SMU IS this evening. Now I'm wondering if I should withdraw my acceptance for SIT SE.
First, some context: Current goal is to a software engineer, although, can't guarantee that goal won't change someday 😂. Settled on SE because I have some experience in front-end web dev (HTML,CSS, JS), so SE seemed like a good pick to expand my skills in development since I do enjoy the process of creating a website.
Based on the curriculum, SIT SE seems like a good course to pick up technical skills for the industry (but please feel free to correct me). And, since the modules are already structured, there's no need for any bidding which is also great, even though the trimester-based system is kind of a turn off. Also slightly worried about coping because I'm not sure if I'll be able to learn other languages easily just cause I can do HTML/CSS.
For SMU IS, we don't pick a specialisation until year 3, so that's good to explore other areas in IT as before choosing a specialised track. I've also heard from my friends pursuing other degrees in SMU that the bidding system is a competitive pain in the ass. And since the modules are not structured, we're recommended to plan in advance and that seems really intimidating. And then there's the compulsory volunteer service, ugh. I've heard that the prof-student ratio is pretty good as well so that's a plus point. The competitiveness is something I'm worried about too.
Another thing about SMU, I graduated from a diploma with 70% design and 30% web dev. Ideally, most graduates would become UI/UX designers or engineers, but most of us graduated with an odd mix of skills in the end, and we don't excel in either area. As a result, those (that I know of) who entered the working world are not doing well. I'm worried that is what might happen with the lack of specialisation until year 3 in SMU. But I think I might just be overthinking.
School fees don't really matter because I'm going to take a loan either ways so 🤷
tldr;

• SIT: more structure and specialised technical skills in SE from Y1
• SMU: less structure, more exploration but focus on technical skills is not so much (and ofc the name is more recognised)

Tbh, I feel like I'm just overthinking and have some preconceived notions from god knows where and I need someone to slap those out of me so I'll get my thoughts together. Idk man, some advice would be much appreciated.

I'm not an active member of this community, in fact I finished college few years back and i am working now, I frequently use reddit and saw few recommended posts in this sub where some people were feeling bad because of their JEE scores or ranks and were feeling suicidal. I was in the same path as you guys and want to tell how I dealed with the same situations in my life. I was living abroad from my childhood, and after 8th grade my parents decided to make me prepare for JEE, I had minimal idea abnout it, I left my happy life with parents abroad and came to India and joined a integrated classroom program for 4 years, During 9th and 10th i was a good student, I was scoring decent in Coaching tests and Great marks in NCERT exams. After 11th my life went to shit, Everything suddenly became hard, I couldnt score marks in anything, I was thrown to the last bath in my coaching with the ones that have no hope in life, I knew i was not going to crack JEE in the last 6 months of my 12th grade, as predicted I flunked JEE, my rank in mains was some 200,000+ I cried so bad that day because I just lost 4 years of my life where i was not with my parents and lived in a hellhole hostel for nothing. After this I got my second biggest blow, my board scores were 59%, I was super passionate about coding and wanted to sutudy computer science in some college, my dad had booked seat in VIT under NRI quota and even they rejected me due to my scores, This was the worst day in my life, my whole life shattered in front of me, I had no forseeable future.
I was feeling like shit only because i dissapointed my parents but i had some hope in myself for some wierd reason which did not let me kms, I got into an electronics course in some college because that is all i gotr for my marks, I couldnt follow my passion of copmputers, but i started putting the efforts to follow my passion, i did anything and everything that came my way, i used every resources that was avaliable to study coding, participated in hackathons, learnt so many random skills, dropshipping, trading, etc. Nothing made me a million dollars but i had the unquenchable thirst for knowledge because i wanted to prove myself, all my friends were in IITs and NITs but i was the loser.
I wanted to change this, so i started consuming random knowledge, upskill myself, but did not care about my actual course and had 15 backlogs in 3rd year, during covid my only source of entetainment was coursera and udemy, i have over 50+ certifications at this point. In my final year i cleared al my backlogs, came out of college, I had so much confidence in me and my skills that I chose not to sit for placements and started my own startup with 0 capital, scaled it to multiple users, met amazing people with it and then shut it down due to some issues, and then was offered admissions into world's top 10 universities in UK and US for my masters, deferred the admissions and chose to accept an offer from a Investment firm in India and joined them having no knowledge in finance, but i knew i could learn anything, and in a very short span of time i became the youngest VP in the company. was invited to give talks in multiple IITs, NITs, and the same VIT that rejected me. Today I can say that I am technically the most successful out of the whole batch of students in my school and college combined all because i did not give a fuck about marks and focussed on my skills.
This is a short version of my life, Im sure your life is not as bad as my life at this point, marks and college is not everything and it wont be shit in the next few years with how AI is growing so please dont take stupid decisons and focus on yourself instead of trying to make others happy.

Gross. Hilton is a terrible parent and treats women terribly. His idea of parenting is to make his ex wife do all the hard work and he just appears to force them to perform like trained monkeys as he shoves a camera in their face. He has never cooked them a meal, washed their clothes or anything. Laura also exploits her children for online views and profits which is so so unethical and it will only be a matter of time before the law catches up with this child exploitation. Laura has showed Alfie riding a scooter at full speed down a ROAD (with cars - not in a playground or bike park) with no helmet multiple times . They both think touching a bat with their kids is funny.
Hilton thinks the vaccination caused his sons autism -which is unfounded on any medical peer reviewed science and more likely related to his advanced sperm age when Alfie was conceived. What part of co-parenting is Hilton going to talk about- the part where he reminisces how much better it was when he was spying on Laura by electronically tagging her vehicle and monitoring it online for months after their break up.
Maybe in their podcast Hilton can talk about how he used his online platform to slander his ex wife, destroy her brand, paint himself as the never ending victim with lies (I built that house poor me! and I gave up my successful career to support my wife- lies, I was only depressed in my last relationship because it was Laura's fault, or I wasn't masculine because it was Laura's fault) , talk about his porn addiction and how he never wants to leave the house or even go into a restaurant or ever take his kids to a playground or a park just wander around in a lost and dazed stupor trying to find an ice cream shop that isn't closed. Maybe Hilton can talk about how he goes AGAINST the mother of his children's wishes constantly by feeding Alfie food that he's either allergic to or causes reactions or exacerbates his autism and then when she brings it up he just laughs in her face and changes the subject to name drop about some celebrity that he knows -- something far more important in his mind...
Maybe he can talk about their kids are going to be subjected to endless bullying at school when they're older because of the content they choose to put up - including personal and private health issues about their kids and even when their daughter has a poo accident and all of his hatred and bullying content towards gay and lesbians, trangender folk, women, fat people, old people, women, etc.....
Maybe Hilton can talk about what he's modelling to his children about healthy relationships, treating women with respect and honesty and morals.
Ah maybe not.

A year and a half ago I was discussing climate change with my sister who's pretty conspiratorial and science-denier adjacent. She told me that she used to recycle until she saw the garbage truck pick up her trash one day and they dumped the sorted recycling right into the truck along with the main trash.
I agreed with her that was bullshit.
So that month, without any real plan, and not being one to miss an opportunity to make myself even more morally superior, I decided to cancel my garbage subscription just to see what happens. I figured worst case scenario I could just sign up again. I was already composting all my food scraps so it wasn't like the extra garbage would stink anything up.
Loosely I had the idea of sorting it and storing it into a compact form. So that's what I did for a year and a half; I sorted all the plastic and cardboard packagings and compacted everything as neat and orderly as I could for storage.
What did I get from this? Well, for one, I save $330/yr which is nice. For two, I have an abundance of plastic and cardboard material for all kinds of little macguyver projects and scenarios. It's like having a really big and more organized junk drawer. It's nice too knowing that nothing is ever accidentally thrown away anymore; I now have complete confidence that every single thing I can't find is indeed somewhere in my house, and was likely lost due to my own negligence.
The other big thing I got from this was a greater awareness of the amount of trash I was generating and bringing into my house on a regular basis. It was a sober realization to be honest. Now when I shop, the way a thing is packaged (or ideally not packaged!) is much more important to me since I have to deal with the consequences. I have an extra reason to favor the produce section at the supermarket now, and you can be damn sure I put those veggies directly in the cart; none of that tissue-paper plastic bag nonsense.
Overall it's been a good experience. It wasn't nearly as burdensome as I feared it might be at the start before I got a basic system going. And although I'm just one person and not putting much of a dent in garbage truck miles, I like knowing I'm not contributing to those giant 30-ton vehicles putting stupid amounts of stress on our roads and causing them to need maintenance (paid for with tax dollars) much sooner than they otherwise would.
Oh and for the the other 1-5% of stuff that can't be reused or repurposed (single-use plastics and such), I've been snipping them up into smaller pieces into an indoor garbage can. I plan to fill 4-5 of them up over the course of 5-10 years and then dump them at a landfill for a $90 charge (the landfills around me have a minimum 2-ton fee).

So a new guy started last week, just out of high school, never worked before. Kicked out of his parents house.
I asked him politely to run an L cart of stock, not much on it. He ignored me 4 x and it was still sitting there at 5p when I left.
At one point, I came back from lunch and he laying down on another cart, on his phone. He's been bringing food into the area, too.
He told me he took the 1p to 10p shift because someone told him it was the easiest.
What would you do?