I genuinely snort-laughed at this 😂

Well, I mean, can you do better than Justin Trudeau?

Yepper, my dad is now long retired, but he was an old school programmer that kept legacy banking systems in the US alive, running in parallel with newer ones (in case the shit hit the fan on the new ones). Though not American, he’s a big Trump fan and definitely would have voted for him if he could have, even though he himself admits its a good things he retired and returned home before Trump became president, because he would not have gotten his US work visas under Trump.

This is basically Mark Carney, the current Prime Minister of Canada. He ran and won as a Liberal, but he would have been a Conservative two decades ago. He’s been working against the interests of every day Canadians, but the thing is that if the alternative is Pierre Poilievre and his Conservatives, I’d still vote for Carney 10/10 times, because at least Carney isn’t a homophobic, transphobic racist. He’ll defend your human rights while robbing you.

Carney looks great on the world stage because he’s juxtaposed against Trump. And yes, we’re definitely better off with Carney at the helm than with Poillievre who was trying so hard to emulate Trump, but the entire world had been taking a pretty hard shift to the right.

I think it’s safe to say the people in charge appreciated the idea of diversity but had no actual clue. Harry Kim was supposedly Chinese, till Garret Wang told them Kim is Korean surname.

You’re right that interactions are not hugs, but they create friendships with people with whom it is both socially acceptable and emotionally healthy to hug. If you don’t hug your friends, you’re missing out in life.

Well, some of them do. Shingles was the most painful shot I’ve ever had in my life. It hurt the rest of the day and then some. Measles was the second most painful, but only for the duration of the shot itself and a short time after.

But I imagine the shingles shot to still be far less painful than actual shingles, from what people have told me of it, so I’d still choose the shot every time.

Essentially what you said, but I’d like to phrase it the way a counselor said it to me when I was under a lot of stress at work. Stress is the gap between our expectation and reality. Say you expect to be/produce/achieve/whatever 100%, but you are only capable of achieving 80%. The stress you experience is that 20% gap. Change your expectations to meet your reality and that stress will be resolved.

Now, it may still be that others might still want or expect that 20% from you, but that’s their problem and their stress. If you cannot produce it anyway (which created your stress in the first place), existing in the stress-gap clearly won’t make you able to do it anyway.

My father exactly. He’s Asian, so I think he feels more removed from the situation, but he worked in the US for over a decade before retiring back here. He’s still 100% pro-Trump, even though we are feeling the negative effects of his tariffs (“He has to put tariffs, he had no choice, look at their economy”), and he even admits things like Good thing I retired before Trump became president otherwise I probably couldn’t get a work visa now. My dad would vote Trump if he could vote.

I’m sorry to tell you the sets have already been dismantled and set pieces already sold off. It’s one thing to renew a show that still had its physical pieces, another thing to have to rebuild everything again.

I’m sorry to tell you this, but he did not love you. You don’t threaten to break up with someone you love, that is an abuse tactic, and you just do not abuse people you love. That is not your fault. That is a reflection of who he is, not who you are. You are only responsible for your own actions, not his.

Really, I mean it, read up on love bombing, DARVO, and if you can get a copy, a book called _Why does he do that? _ I think these will help you understand and process what you’ve experienced.

Good for you. You did the right thing for yourself. But you’re asking the wrong question; this wasn’t a you thing, this was a him thing. By what you’ve said, he’s a selfish and emotionally immature person. What good was he actually for you?

An important lesson to learn in life in general is that you cannot change another person. Only a person can choose to change for themselves, not for anyone else. The whole thing about leading a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. His selfishness has nothing to do with you, except that you suffered for it. He was selfish before you, and he’ll continue to be selfish after you. Maybe one day he’ll choose to change, but that will have to come from inside him, not for anyone else. This is true for all the kinds of ways people need “fixing” (in quotes), big and small ways, from drug addictions to simple things like pet-peeve type habits.

Look up the terms “love bombing” and DARVO. I think you will find descriptions of your ex, and I hope your eyes will be opened to the fact that he was emotionally abusive, and that you were the victim of his abuse. I hope this can set you in the right direction to put him behind you.

Platitudes like “it gets better with time” are both true, but also not very helpful in the moment. The truth is, like any injury, this kind of pain does take time to heal, and it sucks in the meantime. I’m sorry. Till then, you have to keep yourself and your life moving on, even if you don’t feel like it. Don’t let yourself get stuck where you are. You need to give yourself the opportunity to reorient yourself and your life to this change.

For me, the deepest heartbreak I experienced was not a breakup, but the death of a very dear friend. I watched a *lot *of Doctor Who (David Tennant, the first? time). I stopped watching Doctor Who years ago, but I’ll always appreciate the show and David Tennant for bringing me tiny bits of fun in those sad days. It’s been more than a decade; I still miss that friend and feel sad when I think about him. But it’s not a sharp, immediate pain, it’s more like wistfulness. And I can think about and appreciate the good times we enjoyed together.

As for an actual breakup after a not-great relationship (which yours sounds like, from your description in another thread), what I can say is that it is way better to be single than to be with someone who doesn’t love you. Nor does it seem he even liked you even as a friend. Would you ever treat a friend, even an acquaintance, the way he treated you? Honestly, it sounds like he finally did the right thing by ending it rather than continuing to drag it out. I hope you will understand this with clarity later. Don’t settle for that kind of nonsense in the future. Look for someone who is of good character all the time because that’s just who they are, not someone who turns it on and off as he pleases.

Not medical advice, but a suggestion of easy things to ask your doctor to check for if you have insomnia, and inexpensive to address if they are the culprit: taking taking B12 and D supplements gave me (back?) my ability to sleep. I’ve never slept better in my life.

Check out this new wee little reader from Boox: https://shop.boox.com/products/picco
I think the idea of mounting it to the back of your phone is interesting, but I’m not totally sold on the idea. I’m amused by it, but not quite sold. I definitely wouldn’t want it as my every day reader, and I feel like someone who would read while standing in line… would be enough of a reader to want an every day reader.

Anywhats, what I really wish for is a Boox phone. The Palma 2 pro is close, but I still actually need my phone number for professional purposes.

Boox has 10.3" and 13.3" models: https://shop.boox.com/collections/all-products/13-3 The 13.3 would be closest to A4 (assuming that’s what you meant, A4 or 8.5x11). They run Android, you can install other reader apps like Kindle, Kobo, Libby. You can load PDFs by USB (which I do). There was a browser interface which I’d tried and it worked, but I just don’t use it. No idea if it’s still available. The built-in reading app can mark up epubs the same as PDFs. I purchased a Wacom stylus that has a side button for the eraser function because the original it comes with has the eraser on the top. I didn’t like having to flip the stylus over.

I have a predecessor 13.3" model, the Max Lumi, which is no longer available, but I am still fairly pleased with it. I’d gotten mine for the purpose of splitscreening a document on one side and notebook on the other side, to take notes for school. If I were to buy again now, I would go for the slightly smaller 10.3 size to be more portable, but unlikely to use spiltscreen. I would also opt for colour (which was not yet an option when I bought mine.)

Hmm, I see what you’re putting down. I may have to revise my thoughts on the matter. Thanks.

While I agree those ladies were a bunch of loonies, I don’t think the test is supposed to be predictive (this is how you will be), rather descriptive (this is how you are).

Although I’ve had this same argument with people over the function of dictionaries being descriptive (this is how words are used) rather than prescriptive (this is how you should use words).

A tenet of Taoism is that nothing is constant and everything changes. We can have peace and be clear-minded by moving with, around, even redirecting the changes, rather than directly resisting them.

I’m not a taoist, but I think that’s pretty damn wise.

FYI, the wait for processing is now years-long, due to the large influx of applications and the lack of foresight to increase staffing to manage that. Also, if you don’t already have the documentation to prove who your grandfather is, his citizenship, and who you are in relation to him, archives across the country have been inundated with requests for this kind of genealogical information, and they, too, are under-resource to handle it. (And not only so, but arts, culture, and heritage institutions have had budget slashed all across the country, so there are actually fewer people now to handle these requests.)