25M if that matters
I’m recently single. Not going to dive into it, but my ex of a year and a half ghosted me and moved across the country. It’s fresh, and due to the lack of closure (I was never broken up with just no contact) I am not looking to jump back into anything serious for a while.
In the past with heartbreak, I have gone on benders where I just hookup with randoms until I get over it. Not healthy and I’m not trying to do that again. This time around I figured I should try to build back up my confidence and go on real dates casually with the intention just to meet new people and have fun, but I’m running into a serious issue. I work in sales and my entire job is to be attentive to clients and make them feel special, I’m good at it! Issue is, even when I communicate my intentions prior, I must be giving off the vibe that I changed my mind with how attentive I am during dates? Basically I pay attention and seem interested is what I’m gathering.
I know that sounds ridiculous, but I got cursed out for “convincing her I was different than other guys” last night…. Like don’t get me wrong I’m not turning down sex, but I’m making a conscious effort just to enjoy spending time with people and not just do hookups. And this is the second time I have had someone not so happy with me for a similar reason. It’s almost like people associate not just directly asking for sex or a hookup when setting up a date with meaning you want a relationship.
I don’t want to force myself to be less engaging but can anyone suggest a better way to communicate I’m not looking for anything serious without sounding like I just want sex, or I’m playing it cool?

The action takes place in Poland. Robert is a 28 yo happily married man. He works as a pe teacher in a public primary school. Suddenly he finds out that his wife is cheating on him. During the divorce he claims the apartment but his ex-wife claims their car (they only had one). The rumor starts in the school he teaches in that he was the one cheating. Experiencing hate in his workplace, he decides to change the job. He finds an offer from a tiny private school. It already has one pe teacher, but they need another one. Everything is going ok in his new workplace, until he has to give his first lesson with the other pe teacher, Sebastian. They turn out to have completly different views on how to teach. Robert doesn't go easy on his students, and prioritizez self-defence. Sebastian prefers lighter more health-focused exercises. But the more they argue, the more unexpected feelings appear in Robert, and the weirder Sebastian acts around him. So Robert has a decision to make: should he trust his feelings for Sebastian or should he thing logically and avoid another heartbreak? He chooses the first oprion. The plan is simple: he invites the other man to a coffee shop to talk about the conflict between the two, but instead he confeses his love for him. But before he can do it, there's an unexpected situation. They have a swimming lesson, when a student begins to drown. Sebastian saves her, and when he changes, Robert notices weird scars on his chest. When he googles it, he finds out they are scars left after top surgery, witch means Sebastian is trans. While Robert knew he was bi since secondary school, he doesn't understand or accept trans people. He separates from Sebastian, barely even talking to him during shared lessons. He doesn't last like this for long though. Soon he starts doing research about trans people and after a week or two he finds himself understanding the topic more and more. Finally, he finds the courage to go back to his previous plan. During the meeting in the coffee shop, he confesses his feelings for Sebastian, the other man isn't sure though. He does have a crush on Robert, but since they teach in the same school, he things it's a bad idea to start a relationship. Robert doesn't care though, so he invites Sebastian to his place and says, that he'll make him sure. Y'all know what happens next ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° ). So yeah, they start a relationship, but they agree to go on they own pace and most importanyly keep it a secret. But after some time they get caught. Since Robert doesn't have a car and since the divorce he was commuting by the bus, Sebastian agrees to drive him to work. One day when he gives Robert a kiss goodbye, someone takes a picture and shows it to the school superior. She gives the men an ultimatum: one of them is fired or them both. Robert tries to encourage Sebastian to quit the job on their own and succeeds. They take part time jobs for the time they are thinking about what to do in their futures. Finally they agree on a crazy idea: they're gonna open their own lgbtq-friendly school. OMG thanks for reading!!! I'm open to any suggestions or criticism.

On the morning of December 8th, 1941, enlistment offices all across the United States began to be filled by young men eager to enact revenge for what the Empire of Japan had done at Pearl Harbor. The offices would stay busy for a long, long time. It was a dangerous job, with life and limb at serious risk, and many more young men would join the Army and Navy by conscription. Lesser celebrated, and likely they’d have it no other way, were whole second armies of support personnel. These would be nurses, middle-aged clerks too old and or fat to fight, surveyors, engineers, and merchant sailors.
Some would be spies or intelligence men working for the Office of Strategic Services. Others were mysterious ne’er-do-wells, scoundrels who were very good at the procurement of various goods. Some would be anthropologists and translators, eager to help obscure native communities deal with the technologically advanced war tearing the island worlds asunder. Some would be entertainers for the USO, there to help with morale, doing what they were best at, whether it was telling jokes or dancing beautifully. Others might be war correspondents, to communicate, in a highly censored way, what was going on to the folks back home. Then there were the bean counters. Everybody overlooked the bean counters.
Many of the combat veterans, and even some of the non-combat personnel, would never make it home again. Others made it home, but only after being maimed and scarred in body and mind. Yet most would make it home. All of them would have stories to tell, though many would never tell their stories. There was a culture of silence during the war, ‘loose lips sink ships.’ It wasn’t just a catchy phrase, people took it to heart. It became a habit. Even long after the war was over people kept their lips zipped shut.
And yet, there were still millions and millions of stories, and some of them would be recorded. They might be memoirs committed to paper years later. Then again, many of these people kept diaries. They would write home every chance they get. Officers as a regular part of their duties were constantly writing up reports. Every single one would end up being read by someone, somewhere, and passed up the chain depending on its importance, or filed away if the chain ended there. With every battle won or lost, extensive analyses were conducted on what went right and what went wrong, and how we could do better. Actions of bravery were written up for recommendations for medals or promotions. Every serious infraction meant a court-martial, and court martials left transcripts. Bitter denouements and protests were written when it was felt officers weren’t living up to their duties, and in these cases, the lips were zipped especially tight, but the reports themselves were poured over. Every location where the U.S. went, whether it was the location of a battleground, a ranging area for artillery, site for a depot, or a road used to transport was thoroughly mapped and described in detail.
Then there were the bean counters. How many 20 mm shells does it take, on average, to knock down a Val dive bomber? How many pints of A-positive blood should be stocked in a forward field hospital? How many gallons of ice cream are needed to keep a company of Marines in good fighting spirit? The bean counters might not know, but they recorded everything down just in case you wanted to sift through the data, and a lot of people did. The data would end up having a massive contribution to the war effort.
Last were two groups of material that were never meant to see the light of day. The sort of thing that ought to be recorded, but then hidden away only for the purview of top men. The first is information you might expect would cause classification or a cover-up. Disastrous friendly fire incidents. Accusations and or confessions of war crimes. State secrets involving intelligence on enemies and allies both.
Then there’s the other tranche of material. The stuff that defies explanation. Secrets from the hidden corners of the earth that were never meant to be revealed until some young farmboys from a country far away showed up in places where they were never supposed to be.
The following provides an example.
Excerpts from the personal diary of Second Lieutenant Yvette Morgan, Army Nursing Corps, 231st Hospital Group, Normandy region of France, July and August 1944. Aged 20 at the time of writing.
Note: Most American personnel in WWII were restricted from keeping personal diaries for counterintelligence purposes. It was not uncommon that this restriction was flaunted, particularly among personnel with the luxury of a little bit of privacy. Lt. Morgan seems to have understood the purpose of the restriction, and so the redactions in the following excerpts are her own. A careful eye will note she’s made a couple of errors, which is why censorship should be left to the professionals.
July 30th, 1944- Just got off the truck and finally made it back ‘home.’ Just spent all ‘day,’ helping set up the field hospital. We’ve commandeered a high school in the little town of St. A. I think it’s going to work out pretty well. There’s a gym with a tall ceiling and high windows, which means good natural lighting, so we’re setting that up as an operating room. We’ve got about six beds in each classroom, which is just about the number you’d like. The corridors are nice and wide enough to handle gurneys, and there’s plenty of room out front for the ambulances. I don’t think we could have found a better location outside of a purpose-built actual hospital.
The real work starts tomorrow. Well, today, I guess. They ought to be taking patients right about the time I’m writing this. I drew the short stick, and now I’m stuck with the overnight shift. That’s my luck for you. Back home that would have meant at least it would be pretty quiet, but I don’t think that’s going to apply to this kind of duty.
“Home” is actually this nice little old cottage they’ve set me up with, and four other girls. It’s in the tiny commune of L. It’s actually about ten miles from the hospital, not far from the sea. Every shift they’re going to drive us back and forth in these trucks. Seems like an awful waste of gasoline to me, but what do I know? The whole reason they’re doing this is because the hospital’s technically in range of German artillery, and they like to keep staff like us out of harm's way when we’re not needed. I suppose we won’t be in range much longer anyway. That said, Capt. G says the front line’s been stalled out for a while. He says it’s slow going with all these enormous hedgerows they grow everyplace around here. I never knew they could grow so big, they must be hundreds of years old. I thought the poplar windbreaks they started growing back home after the Dust Bowl were impressive, but they’ve got nothing on these things. We can still hear the guns, though. They’re a long way off, and kind of sound like thunder, though you can tell they’re not because the sky is perfectly clear. At least, I hope, they’re mostly our guns.
The morning’s still a little chilly, but it promises to be a warm day. I’m going to have to get used to sleeping through it. After long last summer is really here. The cottage itself is lovely. I can’t help but wonder about the people who really make this home. There’s a delightful flower garden in front and just the most precious herb garden right outside the kitchen window. When I get married and we have a home, I’m going to insist on one just like it.
The other girls? Well, what can I say. 5 of us all sharing this little place, at least we’ll be working different shifts mostly. I’m sure we’ll get by swimmingly.
July 31st- Just got back and finished breakfast for dinner. Part of me still wishes I were at work. If I were at a civilian hospital I still would be. Funny how the military insists on sticking to the scheduled shift and they order me to go home and get some sleep. I might get used to such regimentation.
I say this as if I’m not completely exhausted and overwhelmed. I’m sure I’ll sleep tonight. Today, whatever. As I’d suspected, we had our first wounded in during the morning shift. Most of them had been through the Mobile Advanced hospital and had been at least looked over by a doctor. Plenty had already gone through an initial surgery, just to stabilize them, close gaping wounds, and tie off arteries. It was really crude stuff, but I suppose that’s the point. Our doctors opened them back up and fixed them up properly. There were a few walking wounded, shrapnel wounds, and nasty burns we were able to help out too. I feel glad to be part of such a great team. I spent the first half of my shift assisting in two different surgeries. Then the last half attending the wards.
I had hoped that would be more peaceful. Our boys are so brave, even when you can tell they’re really broken up over what they’ve been through. And yet it wasn’t meant to be.
I mentioned that St. A.’s was within range of German artillery. Well, there was an attack last night, early this morning, I’m still not used to the schedule. They didn’t hit the hospital. They hit the other side of town. It was loud enough to shake all of the windows, and even the ground shook. It scared the daylights out of me. Some of the boys yelled too. A couple of them fell out of their beds and tried to hide underneath. I can’t imagine what it would be like to go through that a second time, let alone time after time, day after day like our boys.
I was just starting to get things settled down and everything squared. Then there was commotion. A bunch of orderlies, then nurses, then doctors running around the front main hall. We were expecting wounded. They’d hit an old medieval church on the other side of town. The Church of Saint Adalthred. There had been a platoon of soldiers sleeping there. Now they were bringing the survivors in.
I had never done triage before, though I remembered my training. You divide the patients into three groups. The group that needs surgery absolutely immediately if they’re going to live. The group that can wait for surgery. And then there’s the group that will die regardless.
There were two young men that were in the last group. The first had a massive open head wound. The strange thing was he was perfectly conscious and capable of speaking, despite the injury. There was just nothing that we could do for him. He was alert for about an hour, and then he simply passed away. Is it horrible to think that was something of a mercy?
The other suffered terrible burns, and apparently some of the blast as well. After the triage, I was assigned to care for him. The doctor had estimated over 90 percent of his body suffered burns in the third degree. The kind of amount that really makes you question your faith. I’ve seen burn patients, but not when they get first arrive like this. His eyes and ears were gone. A strange thing was, he wasn’t screaming like we’d expect burn patients to do. The doctor said his vocal cords were burnt out, but his lungs were relatively free of smoke damage, and he didn’t have that horrible cough. The doctor said it was like “he’d inhaled flame.” He was simply silent. He’s not expected to last the night. Day, I mean. I suppose I won’t see him again. I suppose that’s mercy too.
I mentioned yesterday that I think a school building serves as a fine hospital in a pinch. I’m not sure about that anymore. It’s the ventilation. There isn’t any in the school. Fumes from the ether linger everywhere. So does the stink of infection, no matter how much we fight it. And that last patient. It was like he was roasted. Literally. I thought I’d be sick.
August 1st- The truck ride back is starting to become my favorite part of the day. This one was a long one, despite being the exact same length as all the other shifts. We’re really packed now. The minute we get one patient ready for transport back to England, another takes his bed. They say the war might be over before Christmas. I hope. Don’t know how I’ll be able to keep up this pace for so long.
The little old priest whose church got blown up by the Germans came around to volunteer at the hospital. Poor old thing has nowhere else to go. He’s helping us roll bandages, working the autoclaves, and helping the chaplain out with the prayers. He seems to be helping with morale, god bless him. Particularly the chaplain’s. The priest doesn’t speak English and the chaplain doesn’t speak French, but they both speak Latin well enough to get by. I’ve never heard it spoken before. I grew up Lutheran, and it seems so strange. I’m a long way from home.
The burn patient is still alive. I was really surprised when I got in and found out. Apparently so are the doctors. Of course, I’m attending him again and was asked to change his bandages. Most of the rest of his skin that hadn’t already sloughed off last night did so while I was changing them. I didn’t see any sign of infection yet, though of course, we all know what’s coming. Other than that there wasn’t much I can do. He’s started letting off this low moan. The doctor said he was not really conscious. I can’t imagine he would be, he’s still getting so much morphine.
He was already bleeding through before my shift ended, so I thought I’d do the next shift a favor and take care of it a second time on the same shift. This time the doctor had me place his arms over his chest and belly, and bandage them all together. Also, he had me bandage his legs together. The doctor said that if there’s a miracle and somehow he manages to pull through, it will be because he somehow beat the infection. And if he’s going to have any chance at all then we’ll need to minimize his contact with bandages until can receive grafts. When I was done he ended up looking like a mummy, right out of the pictures. I don’t think it will matter much, and neither does the doctor. But we have to keep trying.
August 2nd- Just got back. The burn victim is still alive. It’s so strange. It’s all I can think about now. When I first got in I went straight to his room. I was absolutely shocked, it was gruesome. His bandages were positively soaked through. There was more red than white. I was just about to chew out the girl on the shift before me. I thought that nobody had changed the bandages since my last shift, but then she told me that she’d just changed them two hours previously. I couldn’t make head or tales of it. So I just got to work changing them myself. It felt so odd, the way the other patients in the room were looking at us. Like they knew there was something off about the whole thing. The patient’s moaning is getting louder too. It must be so unnerving to the others sharing the room.
Then, of all things, Maj. P and Col. S came in to observe. I haven’t seen either of them since we started setting up the hospital. They don’t usually stay up so late. They were washed up and decided to help me bandage the patient. As if they weren’t just there to observe me, but wanted to be a part of it too.
Sure enough, after only a couple of hours, the bandages were soaked through again. I’ve never seen such terribly bleeding. I asked the doctor if it could have possibly been hemophilia. It’s something I’ve only heard about but haven’t seen. He only shook his head like he was sure that it wasn’t. Yet he also looked even more confused than I was. We’ve been giving the patient transfusions. But at this rate, I just don’t know where it’s all coming from.
I know I shouldn’t be writing this sort of thing down, but the doctor confided that he’s thinking of reducing the morphine, maybe the patient will be more lucid. I don’t know how the doctor expects him to communicate with his vocal cords destroyed, or what he could possibly have to say even if he could talk. Well, it’s not my place to decide. I think he knows more about what’s happening to the poor man than I do.
It was all just blood too. In the bandages. No pus at all. I don’t know how he’s not becoming infected.
August 3rd- There’s a great deal of strangeness happening at the hospital. I saw the General’s staff car the moment our truck pulled around to drop us off, the little flags on the front gave it away.. Instead of starting my shift, they asked me to come back to Col. S’s office. My first thought was that I was in trouble, and they’d somehow find this diary. Both Maj. P and Col. S. were there, along with Gen C. who’d driven down from Corps HQ with a couple of his staff. There were also two men from what might have been regular Army, except they wore two long dark coats. I didn’t get their names.
Apparently, they’d all been there for hours and were wanting to debrief me. Well, it sure was intimidating, but they just wanted me to tell them what I’d seen. Fair enough. The patient was burned all over his body. He probably should have died the first night but hasn’t. There’s an awful amount of bleeding which I can’t account for. There’s also no pus or smell of infection, which also didn’t make sense. I told them about how he’s been given large amounts of morphine, though I didn’t say what Cap. H had said about reducing it. No, he had never been capable of speaking since brought in. No, he hadn’t been wearing his dog tags, but between the blast, and the length of time he’d been burning, he must have stripped everything off. Surely they were back in the rubble of that church. Then they thanked me and told me I could go back to work.
Well, I’d just about had it. I stood up and demanded that if they knew something about my patient that they weren’t telling me and that if they did I could take better care of him, well then they had better tell me. I think I even swore though I didn’t mean to. Maj. P almost laughed and Col. S just gave me that stupid patronizing smile. Told me I was already doing everything that I could, and that they were proud of me. He’s a good man, but I’m getting really sick of this Army “that’s on a need-to-know basis” crap.
Rest of the shift was just the usual. Strange how it's become the norm now. No, there was something else. The burn patient was in his room by himself. They’d moved the other beds out. They didn’t tell me why. Probably because his moan’s getting worse. And raspier. I still don’t think he’s out of the morphine stupor though.
Alright, it’s later the same day, the second. I’ve just woken up and had a serious chat with Kathy, the nurse from the second shift, and she’s had a lot to talk about. Rumors are swirling. I don’t know how much of this is true. My gut instinct? It’s all true.
Those men in the long coats? The rumor is they were Army Intelligence. That didn’t make a lick of sense to me at first, but then it started to come together. It turns out there were supposed to be 30 men, including the C.O., in that church that night it got shelled. Nobody else. Except when they added up all the survivors (who’ve moved on to the front), all the wounded that were taken to our hospital, and those who died, which took a while to count, then it all added up to 31 men. So somebody was there who wasn’t supposed to be there, and nobody knows who it is. They think they’ve got all of the dog tags accounted for, which might have been why they asked me about it when I came in later that night. And the one person they can’t account for seems to be the burn victim.
So they didn’t know who it was. Nobody from the St. A.’s was missing. None of the French Resistance were around that night (apparently Intelligence asked them? How else would they know?). So it's really suspicious and they were worried he might be some kind of spy or infiltrator. They still don’t even know why that church was shelled in the first place.
So they started asking questions of that poor old priest who’s been volunteering. We know because they let the chaplain sit in with him, but it seems both of the intelligence guys spoke fluent French. They asked him if there were any kind of acolyte or initiate or whatever sort of junior clergy he might have could have been there. He said no, and anybody who might have was accounted for and healthy. He asked if there was anything valuable that could have been stolen, or maybe he feared could be looted (would our boys do that?). Well, he didn’t think so. There was the holy font, which was an antique, but there were many like it and it was hardly easy to move. There was the Bible at the altar. It was very old and had great sentimental value, but again it would have no value to thieves. There was the tomb of St. Adalthred himself, which was priceless to his community but was a part of the church itself. Why the church had been built in the first place. Impossible to steal.
Then they asked the priest to come and view the patient. Perhaps seeing his proportions, perhaps it might have helped him recollect a similar person he’d seen lately. I understand why they did it. He, the burn victim, does seem shorter than any soldier I’ve met, skinner too. I wish they hadn’t, though. The chaplain said the priest had cried over seeing all those bloody bandages. There wasn’t a point, because the priest said he didn’t recognize him. The strange thing was, the chaplain had said that the priest's behavior seemed really strange. Like they got the really strong sense that the priest was being cagey, and lying to them. Not that he recognized the figure per se, but that he was thinking of something that he wasn’t telling them. He also insisted on saying a prayer over the burnt figure before he left, and they let him.
When I asked why they’d moved all the other beds in the room, Kathy said a little while after the priest had left the burn victim had started screaming, really bad. The other patients asked if they could leave the room, and because of the mystery, Col. S. agreed to it so they could isolate the burnt man. He was only calmer when I arrived later because they’d given him more morphine. When Kathy told me how much my jaw hit the floor. That part has to be baseless rumor.
August 8- I’m back in England. I’ve been too worked up to write, and worried, of course. After it happened, they put me in a truck, drove me to L. to pick up my things, and then I was on a Skytrain back to Cornwall. I guess we stopped at the cottage as a courtesy, it was on the way to the airfield. I was worried they’d find this diary, but they never searched. I don’t think they know what to do with me. I’m not sure what they should do either. They might just send me home, I suppose. I wouldn’t protest that. I just want to get on with things.
So. That night. The 4th.
I’ll start when I get off the truck. That moment when you hit the ground after jumping out of the bed is so sharp like it just sets your whole day. Like a starter pistol at a race. Something about it seemed off just as I was walking towards the door. Now I get in, and the front gallery, ever since that night of the triage, is a pretty empty place. But somebody was waiting for me, and it was Col. S. He came right up to me the moment he saw me. What an upside-down experience.
He starts leading me down the side hall, towards the back of the hospital/school where his office was. So of course I expected he needed to talk to me about something in his office. Only it turned out it wasn’t his office anymore. I thought something was off when I saw two armed guards on either side of the door to his often. Almost as soon, I heard the screaming.
I have just enough time to puzzle together what’s happened when Col. S walks right in, me in tow. They’d moved the burn patient to Col. S’s office, and he’d cleared out. The reason was obvious. The patient was screaming. Really, really loud. It hurt my ears in such a small office. The office was as about as far removed from the rest of the patients as they could move him. His bandages were soaked through, totally bright red. Jet red? Is jet red a thing? If you saw him, you’d say it was. It looked like they had been in the middle of starting to change his bandages, or just about to finish. Because there were parts of his flesh that were exposed. I didn’t realize it at first, and could only tell because of the texture.
I was just staring at him for a while. Jaw wide open. Then I looked at Col. S. He had been watching my reaction. He had such a sympathetic look. I asked him “How long has he been like this?”
“For hours,” he said. Like he was apologizing.
“How much morphine did you give him?” I asked. He was a doctor in his own right, of course. He didn’t get a chance to perform much surgery now that he’s the administrator, but I don’t think that ever leaves you.
He looked like he was about to cry.
“Lethal?” I asked.
“More,” he whispered.
We stood there silent for a few moments. Then he explained the situation. The only people allowed in the room would be doctors. Myself, and he explained I was the nurse with the most experience with him, and that I was the one he trusted the most. I’d have no other duties this shift. The chaplain was allowed in, and the priest. Also, the two guards out front, and that was it. He told me “The men from intel will be back, and a couple of spooks. We’ll figure it out then.” I had no idea what he meant by that, but I just nodded.
Well, the chaplain was there, though he looked a total mess. And it turned out the priest had stayed late but had gone home, exhausted.
So I did my duties. Changed bandages. Changed IV bottles. There were two chairs in the room, one for me and one for the chaplain. With only the one patient sometimes I’d wait. We couldn’t really chat. The screaming was too loud. I don’t think either of us got used to it.
I suppose it was about 3 AM. Mom used to call that the witching hour. Around three it started to change. The screaming that is, the cadence of it. Is that the right word? He started screaming words. Very garbled, but words. That was when I remembered the doctor had said his vocal cords had been destroyed. Had he been wrong? It had to be. Both I and the chaplain were standing over him then. The chaplain whispering prayers. Sometimes we’d look at each other like maybe the other knew what was happening. There were no answers.
The words started getting clearer. Not that we understood them, but they kind of sounded like they were French. Both I and the chaplain thought he, the patient, was becoming lucid. The chaplain opened up the door and told the guards to get the colonel, also to send somebody to find the priest. I suppose anybody could have translated, or so I thought at the time, but getting the priest sounded right.
Well, the colonel wasn’t in, but Maj. P. was. He spoke a little French, but he couldn’t understand the words. I’m still glad he was there. As a witness. I’m glad me and the chaplain weren’t the only ones. It was like the patient was chanting.
It was, maybe ten minutes after the major arrived. The screaming just stopped. No words. Just heavy breathing. Hyperventilating maybe. It occurred to me then that the bandages had become soaked through again. I’d been there the whole time. Watching. Only now had I noticed. He was glistening. The bedding was bloody too, of course. It was everywhere. And then…
Then it happened.
I had been facing another direction. But there was a sound. Like a massive, loud inhalation of are. There was this bright light, like when a lightbulb is about to short out. Except I felt the heat, and I turned. The patient had burst into flames.
I screamed. I think the chaplain and major did too. The two guards ran in. Maybe they sent somebody else to fetch the priest. They just yelled and weren’t able to do anything else. In a normal circumstance, I think somebody would have fetched an extinguisher. Except the patient suddenly sat straight up in his bed. We were positively paralyzed. He was screaming again, and all we could do is watch. His bandages and bedding all burned away. Only then he stopped.
There was this man before us. He had no skin. No eyes. Glistening red, and patches of black where the ash still clung to him. He looked at us. Looked at me. There were two black holes in his face, above the hole for his nose, and his mouth, lips burned away and teeth missing. But the holes for his eyes… I could feel him looking at me despite having no eyes.
Then he spoke. It was French again, at least I thought. I couldn’t understand it. Full sentences. Raspy, but clear. No sign of pain or duress. Yet it was authoritative like he was in full command of his faculties.
I don’t think it lasted long before the priest came rushing in. The priest said something like “sortie” and then the Major told us to get out, the chaplain and I.
We did and closed the door behind us. The two guards were further down the hall, clearly rattled.
We could hear the priest and the burned man talking. Clearly, through the door. The burned man was distinguishable by the rasp in his voice, the commanding tone. Yet as we listened, there was something off. The burned man’s French was different than the priest’s French. It was like they didn’t understand each other. It was like they were speaking two different dialects, and I didn’t realize until I heard them both being spoken next to each other.
There was a pause of silence. And then the priest started speaking in Latin. I saw a look of relief on the chaplain’s face when the burned man responded, also in Latin.
The two spoke, the burned man and the priest. They went on and on, me not understanding any of it. The burned man seemed to calm, the priest becoming more anxious as they went. Then I turned to the chaplain again. His attention was totally focused on the closed door, but he was listening to the priest and the burned man talk.
He was shaking, and pale as a ghost. I’ve seen men shake. I’ve seen them shake from the effects of blood loss and shock. I’ve seen them shake because they’ve been mad from war. I’ve seen them shake from hypothermia and hypoglycemia and drug overdoses. I’ve seen no end of fear in their eyes. Fear as they’re going under anesthesia, or having their limbs removed, or knowing they’re about to die from their wounds.
I’ve never seen a man so afraid or shaken than that chaplain on that night. And all because he was able to follow that conversation in Latin.
The door suddenly opened. The priest waved us aside, looking more determined than I’d ever seen him. We pressed ourselves against the wall to get out of the way. The burned man followed him. Silent. Walking. We watched them walk down the hallway. The guards turned and fled. Then the priest and the burnt figure turned the corner, and that was the last that I saw of them.
I remember looking back into the room and seeing the Major, slumped in a chair, hands covered his face. The smoke from the burning bandages and bedding still hung in the air, sweet and strong and foul due to the lack of ventilation.
The two men in the long coats showed up. There were also a couple of men in suits. Civilians, I guess. They sort of took charge. Then they just put me on a truck, didn’t even ask me any questions.
And that’s what happened.
I’ve been on this base for a couple of days. They seem to be giving me a lot of freedom, they let me go into town yesterday. I went to a library. It wasn’t a very big one, but I guess it didn’t need to be. I found a hagiography. Or, I guess, a sort of encyclopedia on the subject of saints.
There was a very small entry on the subject of Saint Adalthred. Very little was known about him. He’d been a saint in early medieval France. He’d preached to royalty. The Marrowvingians I think it said, I don’t know what that is. Like all saints, he’d performed three miracles. Like all saints, he’d been martyred. He’d been burned at the stake. His last miracle had been his own resurrection.
I don’t know what to do with this diary. I never should have started it, and yet I think it’s important that I did. I think I’m going to turn myself in and give it to them. I suppose they’ll court-martial me over it, send me home. I don’t want to go home, but maybe I deserve it. At any rate, clearly, there are higher powers than me at work here.
-End copy.-
All of the documentation by the U.S. during the war was massive. All of the officers, nurses, spies, bean counters, and everybody else contributed to the pile. This was long before the digital age, or even microfiche, so the sheer scale of the paperwork is hardly conceivable. It could have been measured by the cargo holds of liberty ships.
After the war, the Army and Navy needed someplace to store it all. Any of it could have had unforeseen value, and destroying it was never an option. In 1951, with the Korean War raging and threatening to exacerbate the document problem, the Department of Defense decided to build a massive new warehouse archive to store it all. In 1956, the Military Personnel Records Center was finished. Ostensibly the archive was meant to store personnel records, but the military being the military, and the warehouse being of such a huge scale, it housed other records as well. Records such as the nurse’s diary, records of things unnatural. Supernatural. Only to be seen by top men.
One of the items discussed during the facility’s construction was the inclusion of a sprinkler fire prevention system. There was a concern that such a system could leak, and cause water damage to all the important documents. So the archive was built without one.
In 1973 the building burned down, taking millions of documents with it. The cause was never officially determined. At the time, and for many years after, the biggest problem was the bureaucratic nightmare it caused for millions of veterans and collecting the benefits they were entitled to.
To a very small community, namely us, the damage was a travesty. That’s the purpose of this project. To retrieve the documentation, study, and catalog it, this entry is only the first example. Naturally, the question arises- how do we retrieve these files if they were all destroyed in the fire? Well, that’s on a need-to-know basis, Lieutenant, and you don’t need to know.
​
Author's Notes: The War Files is meant to be an on-going series of horror stories set in and around WWII, and the very real Archive Fire. Maybe it would make a good podcast? This was sort of a pilot episode and thought it would fit the theme of this month's event. If you liked the story and want to read more, I'll probably post them either to my subreddit EBDavis or my substack ebdavis.substack.com

The 1-year mark of the beginning of my problems with my first new Malibu boat has recently passed to no resolution of my problems. Therefore, I figured it's time to share my experience with anyone who may be considering a Malibu/Axis product.
In April 2022, I purchased a new Axis t250 off the showroom floor at Lake Norman Marina and it was great for the first few weeks, but on Memorial Day weekend of 2022 after a rider had fallen, the boat would no longer start. After about a week of the boat being at the dealership, they decided it wasn't just the starter and for some reason the transmission needed to be changed. About 2 weeks later I got the boat back, went out 3 times, and the transmission actually blew. They changed it again, and on my 3rd time out again the transmission blew. They changed it yet again and on my first day out the engine temp was skyrocketing and fluid spilling out, turned out a hose had not been secured properly and was spilling into the engine bay, but on the 4th time out, the transmission blew once again.
At this point, the entire month of June had passed, I had multiple issues with their maintenance practices and communication and had not received any offer of compensation for tows, no paperwork for warrant work performed, no contact from Malibu, or even an apology from the dealership. The boat had under 40hrs on it, and I had spent probably 15hrs on the water waiting for tows and being towed in. But the dealership and malibu decided to change the entire engine. 3 weeks in and I decide to call Malibu's engine department and ask how long, an engine change takes. (As an aircraft mechanic myself, changing giant turbine engines on Airbus fleets can be done in under 32 hours). The engine tech informed me it was a 5hr job and they also did not know why my transmission was changed in the first place since I had never received a transmission overheat message. However, I received my boat back about a week later and hoped that was the end, I could finally use my boat. About a week in, some wires to the screen came loose and I lost all my gauges on the opposite end of my home lake and at this point I was fed up. I told the dealership to take the boat back and I never wanted to see it again. I had been paying for a boat for 3 months and only had access to it for under 1 month.
This is when Malibu finally decided to get involved and Robert C. contacted me and admitted that the boat was a lemon. I informed him how I was displeased with the company, product, and the dealership and had never received a single piece of warranty paperwork, not even for the engine so that I could have the serial numbers switched on my insurance. He sounded surprised but ultimately didn't do anything regarding that issue but did offer to build me a new 2023 model year boat to replace my lemon if I just road that one out for the season because "Malibu wanted to earn my trust back as a customer". I expressed my concerns with product quality, the fact I'd be paying for a boat I hate for months, and new loan rates but after Robert adamantly assured me over 10 times that I would 100% be able to keep my same loan, and that my new boat would be put through a more in depth inspection process he called their "dock inspection" I decided to take the deal because pursuing the Magnussen Moss Warranty Act in court could have just yielded the same end result after much more time. Also, for 2 months straight I continued to ask Lake Norman Marina for warranty work paperwork in order to document my experience and the only thing I ever received was a screenshot of the hours of manpower assigned to my boat on one day.
In October of 2022 I submitted my new build and was told the new one would be completed in early spring/March. However, just after Christmas I received a call from the dealership that my boat was ready, and I need to submit for a new loan. I raised hell, right after Christmas when my credit cards were near capacity, 3 months early on completion, after a ton of reassurances that there was no way I would need a new loan at these higher rates, and after I have continued to make payments on the existing crap boat, I was told to get a new loan. I reached out to Robert because he was so adamant about the fact I would not have to, and he proceeded to make a bunch of excuses for the dealership and say it's out of his hands. Where I then responded, why would you make promises you can't keep, about something you have no control over? This was the most important stipulation of the deal to me. That is when I first realized Malibu cannot be trusted. They ran my credit and as I expected my 4.5% interest would now be 9-10%, but luckily, I contacted my loan officer and detailed the entire situation to him. There was no way I was going to pay more money for a boat from a company that had shitted me. I told him, you either keep this loan and continue to make the money off of me you already are, or I am getting a boat from another company with another bank, and you make none. He agreed with my position and after a couple days managed to convince his higher ups to do a collateral swap on my current loan. No thanks to the dealership or Malibu.
Here we are in 2023, new year, new me, new boat, lets fucking see. I take delivery of my new 2023 Axis t235, and she looks beautiful. I take her right to the shop to get some tint thrown on. That evening I take the boat to the marina and hop in to see if they put any fuel in. 88% full, ok well they did the 10hr break in so that could be why. The next morning, I have it fueled up by the marina, still 88%. Some, "dock inspection" and more so how did the dealership not notice this during the break in period? But whatever I am ready to surf and will wait until my first service to have it addressed. Granted, I surf 3-4 times a week and fill it before every outing for weight. Then I recieved notice of the recall on the steering cable block and called my dealer but they had not recieved any tooling to complete it yet. But he told me it wasnt like the boat was gonna blow up, just dont go full power and I should be fine, at most I'd need a tow and I was used to that after the previous year. The boats running great, all sorts of squeaks and dry pump noises I had mentioned on the previous boat to the dealer, and told were normal, didn't exist on this one. Amazing. But one saturday after a rider had fell, and 2 jet skis were coming straight at im I start tapping my horn and it gets stuck wide open. We shut the boat off and on several times but as soon as the battery is set to on the horn sounds, so we decided to get under the dash, mid-lake, and disconnect the button. While this is happening I just so happen to get an e-mail from axis to submit a review on my boat and experience. Which I answered honestly; boat runs good, salesman good, not too impressed with company, dealership bad. Within minutes Logan K. sales manager, and son of the dealership owner e-mails me, 6pm on a Saturday, and says, "I cannot believe you bashed us yet again. Actually, I can." and proceeds to tell me they will no longer work on my boat, also that he has CC'd his entire service department to let them know. I respond telling him how all I did was answer the questions honestly based on my experience, and that him unprofessionally e-mailing me with a refusal to work my boat because of that, with the several existing issues is not in line with Malibu's statement of wanting to earn my trust back. He stands by his statement and says that they will not work the boat, and that I need to reach out to one of 2 other dealers farther away to have them correct the problems. The following Wednesday I go to surf and my marina manager tells me Lake Norman Marina was here earlier that day and had pulled my boat out to do some recall. I immediately e-mail Logan, informing him that I would like to know where we stand because if Lake Norman Marina is no longer working my boat, then they should not be touching my property, and regardless I should be informed before they have it pulled out for any work. He claims it was an oversight and will not apologize for the mechanic, even though ya' know, he CC'd his entire service department. From where I am standing, I have no idea if this tech came out to sabotage my boat or God knows what. Now since that initial interaction that previous Saturday, I called Malibu and left voicemails on 3 different phone numbers Mon-Fri of the next week. 15 voicemails and not a single response. So, the next week I go to my local Supra dealership, who is amazing by the way, shout out to Southtown Watersports!
The guys at SW are familiar with my story because every time I have come for boards, jackets, or lead bags etc. I have given them the latest and greatest in my ridiculous experience. They told me dealers have a direct line to the manufacturer and I should go ahead and reach out to the next closest dealer, give them my story and see what happens. Thats what I decided to do, Captain's Choice is 2 hours from me and when I spoke with them, they were just mind blown by my experience. Told me in 20 years he hadn't heard a story like mine. But they were very helpful and said they were going to look up parts and work on my boat and get them ordered so I could get it all fixed without wasting time. Big upgrade there. about an hour later I get an e-mail from Mr. Logan again. "Malibu sent us the parts to fix your horn but I told Robert you said we were not allowed on your property so let me know how you would like to proceed." This ding-dong sends me this, twisting my words, in the same e-mail chain where he is the one refusing to service my boat and I stated that if you are going to refuse service then you shouldn't be on my property. I replied telling him that I had reached out to the other dealer as he forced me to but that I would rather them come fix it, than have to trailer my boat 2 hours each way for something small. The following morning, he replies that he thinks I should just move forward with the other marina, and he would send them the parts. What? After 10 or so days he emailed me about fixing it with absolutely no intention to fix the boat? fuck off. I sent him a strongly worded response signed, "Sincerely, Eat Shit." and forwarded the interaction to Robert, detailing that in the same chain Logan proves he is a liar and twisted my words. I didn't expect a response at this point, but 3 min later Robert finally replied asking to speak on the phone later that day. When I talked to Robert, he once again made a bunch of excuses defending the dealerships behavior while stating he was not taking sides...makes sense. Told me they could do what they wanted and that me trailering by boat 2 hours each way to Captains Choice was a reasonable thing, knowing that the previous boat literally broke every week for 2 months. He informed me that ignoring my 15 voicemails was his call, in order to not escalate the situation, REALLY makes sense. Also, states that he told the mechanic to access my boat for the recall, which is not what ol' ding-dong had said. All trust in the company and especially Robert is lost at this point, so the conversation is useless.
About 2 weeks later I finally have the appointment to get the issues at my boat fixed 2 hours away. A spot in the flooring had bubbled at this point so it was that the horn, the fuel gauge, and possibly the recall. I leave at 530am with my boat to make sure I am at Captains Choice by 8am. Everyone was great there and were just as mind blown as myself that traveling that far for maintenance was considered reasonable by Robert and Malibu as far as "earning my trust as a customer." I was there for about 4 hours, napping in my truck when they took me back to my boat and said they stuck a needle in the bubble and smoothed it flat as directed by malibu, but it could bubble again, and they would then replace the piece. They reconnected the horn and it worked but in case it got stuck again they would send me a new horn unit to my house, seeing as ol ding-dong logan never sent them the parts. I have yet to receive the parts. They said the recall had been completed but was never put into the system which is no suprise seeing as Lake Norman Marina obviously does not believe in paperwork. Then theres the fuel gauge, he showed me that the float will not reach 100% ever, that it was poor design and nothing they could do. I mean, if thats the case I figure the rep for Malibu, Robert should have heard this complaint by every person who purchased a t235 at this point and not sent me 2 hours away for nothing. Anyways, they buttoned her up, and I headed home. Captain's Choice was great and a much better experience than I had previously had at the other dealership but, in total, I spent 9 hours that day and a full tank in my truck to return home with a boat in pretty much the same condition I left with. A needle poke to the floor and recconnected horn that both may fault again, a paperwork update of work performed by someone else, and being told that my 2nd brand new $140,000 boat in a year does not work right straight from the factory.
When I returned home I e-mailed Robert and told him that Malibu can either take this boat back, I keep my experience to myself, and we part ways. Or I will sell it on my own and relay my experience. As expected, no reply, so here we are. During this time I have also made small comments to other Malibu owners posts and been contacted by multiple people sharing their stories with me about the companies poor treatment of customers, and as one 20yr Malibu owner told me, it seems to only have gotten really bad since about 2020. I know some people have had wonderful experiences but this is the honest recollection of my 1yr experience with this company and I think its best for anyone looking to purchase a new boat to know what they may be getting themselves into with this company.
Also, if any other t235 owners read this let me know if your fuel gauge only reads 88% full.

I hate my job, my coworkers are lazy and I'm always picking up the slack.. I simply cannot slack off the same as I have good work ethic.. would quitting with no back up be super stupid? I have been here 8 years and I hate it, I make $26 an hour and don't think I'll find the same pay but at this point I shouldn't care. I want to quit so badly. This place also smells like a rotting corpse half the time and management does not care about shit. Please any advice is appreciated. Losing my mind here.

Context: parents are selling their main house in an EU country and want to buy one in the UK (while they live in & then sell their current second home, in the UK). They will have approx £1M in euros (~€1150000) when the sale is all done. Now, they want to buy something worth ~£500k in the UK, and keep ~€600k in euros (to ‘move’ to a tax haven in Europe so they take home ~€65k a year more).
So, currently they want to move half a mil to a UK current account until they find their ideal UK property (could easily take over a year), and leave half a mil in euros til they find a property in Cyprus or Malta or whatever–which has me shaking my head.
You might understand my frustration when I’ve got a solid (MSc) degree and struggle finding a job paying over £25k and my boomer parents without degrees are thinking leaving ~£1M in current accounts for probably at least a year.
But it gets better: - they don’t trust 'stocks/shares'. - even the word 'invest' scares them. - they are sceptical of bonds, as well as high interest savings accounts from online banks without a branch. - they don't trust financial advisors because they are out to get them.
Basically they only trust their RBS current account and "bricks and mortar" property because their money has been 'safe' there. Did I say they are boomers?
I think with some persuasion I can convince them to be a bit smarter about it, but not sure how. I was going to suggest put 20k in a S&S ISA and 480k in Premium Bonds while they shop around for a new house in the UK. And find some kind of Euro alternative for Premium bonds... transferring all that money from euros to GBP has them panicking too, because apparently you can wait for a 'good' exchange rate because of course my parents know more about FX than financial institutions.
Any tips/advice appreciated

Hi! Does anyone know the policy on sending a private in basic a portable charger? I did already get the green light to send it by a former DS that i know, but was wondering if anything special needs to be done regarding how it is sent? Thanks in advance.
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I'm going to transitioning from the Navy to the Army via an interservice transfer. I have four years, a deployment, and a lot of memories under my belt. I am electing to come back in as an O-1 into the Army as I have no interest in the limited job prospects that an O-3 with no Army experience would bring me, and frankly I don't give a shit -- it's just 4 years. My (fairly promising, at least based on what the Army side said) goal is to eventually be infantry.
Coming in as a new Army officer, what should I expect, both from the position of coming from a different branch and generally as a "new guy" Army officer?
What stuff (most likely) stays the same coming a ship, specifically ship-life? What changes the most?
How best can I take care of my people while still accomplishing the mission? I know this looks very different between branches. It's always a delicate balance.
What does the "daily grind" of a combart arms community look like? What's the "unnecessary BS day-to-day" that you guys get up to? (I can think of plenty of examples in the Navy, but I'm not sure they translate 1:1).
BONUS: What are your best and worst interaction stories with your fresh LTs?
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Im 25 with a bachelors in CyberSecurity, also an Eagle Scout. Have not done much volunteer or team leadership since then. Nor do I have much work experiance.
Am I too uncompetitive for an OCS slot for 17X?
I spoke to a recruiter who mentioned going enlisted at E4 with 17C, then after 1 year of training and 1 of actual work, applying for OCS then.
Is that a realistic scenario or classic recruiter talk getting my hopes up in order to boost elistment numbers?
Prior medical history includes inactive IBS + depression from a couple years back.
Also, what are the timeframes for getting in with both of these options?
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Is it worth getting Emt certified or Paramedic certified before going Army? I got DQ at meps and was told I need to wait a year due to medication I was on last year. I'm trying to find something to fill my time for when I'm able to enlist next year. Is this a good idea or a waste of time?
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I have been recently promoted, and clothing and sales is currently out of stock of my current rank, so I am unable to update my AGSU. We have room and uniform inspections soon, and my first line is attempting to make me wear my AGSU with incorrect rank. I have been looking through AR670-1 as well as AR700-84 trying to see if there is a reg against this, but have been unsuccessful in finding one. If there isn’t, I’ll deal, but I’m not too keen on wearing a previous rank. Any help backed by regs would be appreciated
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I’m going National Guard. I’m still working through the beginning process with my recruiter. Here’s the catch: I wasn’t born in the US. I was born in Kazakhstan.
I was never naturalized because when I was adopted into my family in 2002, the Child Citizenship Act passed in 2000 stating that the amendment is “to provide for the automatic acquisition of U.S. citizenship when certain conditions have been met.” — I have met these conditions and am a legal citizen of 22 years (Section 320 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. This amendment states that I also do not need a certificate of citizenship, which I never applied for as I legally do not need one.)
I have a passport, a social security card, a legal photo ID and a birth certificate. I DO HAVE a permanent resident card, but it expired years ago. I was a baby when my parents got it and they never renewed it. However, I am a US Citizen. I’ve lived here my entire life. The problem is, my recruiter insists that I must have that Permanent Resident Card up to date. I would do it in a heartbeat, but it costs $500.
Why is my passport, ID, SS card or birth certificate not enough to prove my citizenship? I’m frustrated and my parents are getting short with me constantly asking about it.
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Kind of a situational question. My wife is scheduled for C Section June 21st and it looks like I may get PCS orders before then. If I do, and the kid comes, what do I do? Soonest my wife’s doc says she can move is 6 weeks postpartum and my wife can’t look after our first kid and newborn while she recovers from surgery. Is there anything I can do to report closer to the end of baby leave? I’m a geobachelor.
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I just have a couple questions about how having a GED will affect my enlistment. I've heard it makes you ineligible for bonuses, but what about contract options? Could I still get an Option 4 contract? Option 19? If not, how many college credits would I need to move into the Tier 1 education category?
also, how do you increase your chances of going to certain schools (Airborne, Air Assault, Ranger, etc) if it's not in your contract? Going in as a 68W (Combat Medic) if that makes a difference
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Is there some regulation against sending a SM on a deployment/rotation when they are very close to ETS? Say 6 months out?
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Im a dumbass and made and said a lot of stupid ass shit that some hater who had it out for me has been basically (not really) 'blackmailing' me with that was on my laptop (private, never uploaded) which he hacked into . It was a bunch of questionable shit I said that basically makes me paranoid reasonably that I could possibly be court martial'd but I was never arrested or anything, and I'm sure the guy would upload it again if I joined the Military just to tarnish my good name. I said all this when I was 18 , but basically this dude came to my house and threatened my family with a knife and I responded, 'not so good' , and as a result, I was basically 5150'd and had lied to the people saying I was suicidal resulting in a medical documentation which has made me fearful of ever going to MEPS. So at the time I was 'isolated' so in attempt to expose the fact that there was a legitimate danger I reasonably tried to court attention on Twitter and basically did and said everything that could ever allow me to hold a security clearance before deleting it.
My perception of the event was that he was threatening my family with a knife, but to the outside world, he simply slashed my families tires. Basically he baited me and fell for it. There was much more to the story but if I could go back in time I probably would not have reacted the way I did but I was 18 and my mind was barely developing.
​
I was 5150'd and I was told I could never hold public office and I am barred from the Medical field . This of course was a lie, but it's BASICALLY on my Medical record and it's a huge red flag. So naturally, unable to join the Military, I was unable to complete my mission and of course, was put on medication for some time (7 months) until I can figure out what to do. So I been working warehouse jobs ever since that day . I am 23 years old now, the incident happened when I was 18. I was and still am a cross country runner who is fit and healthy , who can complete the physical requirements just fine but the 'Moral' and 'Medical' is what's preventing me from joining, open to debate. I haven't made the same dumb mistake of reacting to my families tires being slashed since and learned from that experience .
​
Obviously the Police knows what was on my laptop because this dude went around with the unauthorized material he was not allowed to have and actually put the content in DVD's around the city hoping someone would pick it up and read it , and I actually worked at a warehouse which actually had a police officer who worked there at the warehouse to check the hard drives for CP (i dont know the deal about that) , and he found the very same DVD filled with the content of my basically unhinged responses that I never uploaded to the internet .
​
Basically this dude mentally ruined my life but I wasn't the only 1 he has done this to, he has hacked into multiple people's laptops and slashed other people's tires before and distributed information and he has been arrested in the past .
​
I was wondering if I could be court martial'd for unprofessional conduct before I even join the military or am I just overthinking this? I basically had this huge 4 hour clip of a rant about his twitter account on my laptop that was perfectly constitutional legal but if you took things out of context it sounds like something that would have me arrested if I was in the military , and I never uploaded it, nor planned to. maybe it's just all in my head but as you can imagine , the real problem isn't my speeches that were on my laptop but the 5150'd , which was at the time and information I had at my disposable,a completely reasonable reaction to a violent threat.
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PCS’ing to Schofield tomorrow, any tips?
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Does anyone know if you still have to have a physical copy of your profile on you? I remember reading somewhere that you don't and your commander can look at it
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I recently graduated college and am looking for advice in terms of what I should expect/request in my contract for 68W MOS. I got my B.A. in cellular biology in the beginning of May and have been set on enlisting since my junior year; now that I'm in the last couple of steps with my recruiter before going to MEPS, I wanted to know if there was anything I should ask for based on my scores/degree (520 MCAT, 99 ASVAB, 146 GT) in terms of rank or guaranteed admission to schools (such as Airborne) coming in. I am looking at the 2-year contract as of now because I do want to apply to medical school down the line. If I enjoy my time, I am open to staying longer in the Army. However, there are some characteristics I currently need to work on that I know enlistment will provide (as opposed to OCS which would mean an extended contract) in addition to education benefits. Also, the alternative would have been doing a gap year in a lab or clinic which doesn't pay much better and is something I have done my fair share of. Any help is appreciated; thank you.
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This is kind of a weird question but i really want to join the army but my family is telling me that it’s impossible for me to join because unfortunately my parents passed by suicide and that alone will disqualify me. I’ve tried googling it and looking all over the internet to find a. Answer but I can’t find it. Is there any truth to that? Thanks if answered.
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I’m a drill right now and I’m looking at being Force reclassed and looking for a new MOS. I saw 51C and was curious if anyone knew what the day to day looked like? Or if anyone knew of any MOSs that were chill 9-5 jobs.
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How does the average person become an officer in the 75th or special forces? Even for support roles, don't most people have to go through the qualification training and fail?
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Do you ever feel remorse for the innocent civilians you slaughter in the name of imperialism and the military industrial complex?
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I've always had a draw to service, but my athletic opportunities usually kept me from it. Out of high school, I had the opportunity to play college baseball and passed up on trying the academy route. Once I got halfway through college, I wanted to try ROTC, but I was a starter on the baseball team and balls deep in a mechanical engineering course load, so it didn't seem feasible to add to my plate.
Now, I'm going on 24 with 2 years of experience as an ME in product development. Is there a military route for someone like me who does have a college degree, but is beyond the point of an ROTC college program? Is my specific degree useful for the military?
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I'm joining the Army soon, within a month or two. I've come up with an MOS list I made based on what I'm interested in (this is NOT a list of my available jobs based on my ASVAB score, just some jobs that sounded interesting based on the field I was looking into). I was mostly considering Logistics and Supply, but I am open to other potential fields, and jobs that aren't in the list below. Like I said, I want to do something in logistics and supply, but more so, just something non-combative that allows me to travel to most bases. What do you guys think about it? Any recommendations? I do plan to do something in law enforcement after I get out, but my MOS does not have to relate to that. Here is the list. The first two are the ones I'm currently considering, and the ones in parentheses are the ones I'm interested in.
(Cargo Specialist 88H)
(Unit Supply Specialist 92Y)
(Automated Logistics Specialist 92A)
(Ammunition Specialist 89B)
Ammunition Stock Control and Accounting Specialist 89A
(Corrections/Detention Specialist 31E)
Culinary Specialist 92G
Medical Logistics Specialist 68J
(Military Police 31B)
(Motor Transport Operator 88M)
Petroleum Supply Specialist 92F
Transportation Management Coordinator 88N
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Can someone please answer this question? If by some chance a person is granted a moral waiver for one felony possession charge on their record Will that allow you to join infantry or be around guns in general? Or would you have to have your firearm rights restored?
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Do you guys still have to have an NBC mask as part of the uniform when out in the field? If yes, do you still practice going into full MOPP gear?
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Completely off topic to Army. Has anyone used a gaems vanguard with the steam deck? Found one for cheap for field purposes but I can't find anything that says it works or not with the deck.
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30 year old with great Asvab and physical tests, no medical problems other than anxiety counseling in 2020. Problem 1: I have a large hand tattoo on my right hand. It’s a animal with some foliage and stuff. It is not on knuckles but descends from half sleeve down wrist and over top of hand.
Issue 2: I was discharged from navy boot camp in 2019. Long story. Mental health and personal reasons. I have an re-4 jfc on my dd 214. ( navy parting gift) I have authorized documents of treatment for my condition signed from doctor and no treatment or problems with mental health since early 2020 and no medication ever needed. Is there any shot I’d get approved for enlistment in the army ? @7hillsrecruiting
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Can someone please describe the process of renrolling into DLC? I did not complete it in the 720 day window however I am not barred from reenlistment (yet).
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Hey there ! I’m working things out to go to sign a 37F contract in the USAR soon since I had a high enough score on my ASVAB, but my recruiter confirmed that I would have to go to FSPC or Fat Camp due to being 2% over what’s allowed for body fat before I attend basic. I don’t mind basically getting paid to workout and learn about nutrition, but I’d love tips and just overall things to prep for before I have to ship out to it.
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i got Fort Sill as my first duty station im a 94T and i have family how is the on post housing or should i just rent a house off post
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I have a uniform question that i can not seem to figure out using ar670-1 or the pam currently i have been wearing my improvised hot weather combat uniform but the one i was issued back in 2019 apparently is the first generation that has the mesh lining in the pants and no velcro on the top of the shoulder pockets and my first line was telling me he doesnt think this is authorized anymore since a newer version was released so he asked me to look into the regulations but i cant find anything saying if i can or cant where it the most i know as of right now is the ihwcu is authorized but i have an older version apparently but its also what they issued me at ocie so im trying to find if anyone can help me out or knows if i can still where this i dont wanna buy a whole other uniform just because this doesnt have velcro on the top of these pockets
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What is the most realistic special operations group someone can join for the average person?
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Do you need a DA Form 1610 to attend the BAC? Fort Moore's website states you cannot attend BAC in a leave status, but how would anyone walk on if that's the case? And soldiers do walk on, I've heard firsthand.
I'm attempting to attend Airborne on leave before I PCS, is it possible? I just commissioned, and will be working for Cadet Command all summer before I PCS to BOLC.
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Can i join the ranger Special forces with a red/green color blind?
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Is someone able to join if blind in one eye
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As a prior enlisted, when I go to meps will the councilor just tell me my duty station I’m headed to after I pick my Mos? Will I have any say? How does that work from your experience
Any personal opinions and experienced insight is appreciated
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If someone becomes an intel officer, can they tryout for the 75th or the special forces?
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I have just returned from TDY, for Family separation pay, do I need to fill out 1561, or is it a special pay request on IPPS-A. Can’t find any answer from S-1, or other SM. Any help would be appreciative.
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I want to join the army, Can I pick a supply Mos with a ASVAB score of 41 and CL of 90 ?? The army website says yes I just wanted to know if the website is accurate. (92A/92y) Mos
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How long does it take for my rank to update in my email? I was promoted to SGT yesterday and it didn't update yet. It updated automatically for others in my unit. Do I need to update my CAC?
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I'm enlisting in the Army Reserve as a 35L and soon to go to basic in a few weeks. I have a couple of questions that are hovering over me since I'm counting down the days to basic training. I'm a lot older then most of the trainees are going to be in basic. I fear if I get injured or recycle for whatever reason. Will they change my mos because I didn't meet the allotted time slot for 35L AlT? Will I become over holdover until the next class? How frequent are the courses if held over? And also to add if any directions toward course work should I start studying to familiarize myself with?
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Anyone have an idea on what finance battalions are? Gonna be shipping out as 36B and I generally understand what the job will entail but lots of the comments I’ve read say “oh they’re reforming 36B into finance battalions”. Is this a good or bad thing?
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Prior service coming in; USMC to Army, E5. I’ve already gotten some good anti-cringe advice on general differences between the branches of service, but if anybody has advice on stuff to bring/not bring to AIT (I only got a bootcamp packing list) or tips I’m all ears.
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Is it common for people to become shorter from the ruck marches?
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Can you have nicotine in AIT, may be useful to add that I’m doing split training where I do basic one summer then do AIT the next.
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How does reclassing work? My window will be hitting soon and it’s time to move on. Will I have any Mos available to me? Duty station as well? I heard a lot about undeover strength Mos and how they affect reclassing. Any info on how it works would be great. Thanks fellas
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Is having a iep when I was in school a disqualifyer if not do I need a waivet
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I can barely do 5 push-ups, and I’m leaving for army basic combat training in 1 week, any recommendations?
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Pollen Allergies @ BCT Jackson
I am shipping out to basic training at the end of June. Has anyone had any experience with sick call during training and/or reception when dealing with seasonal/pollen allergies?
If this affected you, did you get prescribed anything or go to sick call any once in a while? I lived in GA for a stint and the pollen down south was not my friend so trying to prepare for the worst if possible. Not taking any meds right now.
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Can MPs join the 82 Airborne
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just graduated AIT, would it be possible to trade my duty station with another soldier for both of our benefits and we're both consenting ? he's got schofield hawaii and i have fort george meade maryland, im a pv2 he's a PFC and we have the exact same training and MOS? thanks.
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Hi! Does anyone know the policy on sending a private in basic a portable charger? I did already get the green light to send it by a former DS that i know, but was wondering if anything special needs to be done regarding how it is sent? Thanks in advance.
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I'm going to transitioning from the Navy to the Army via an interservice transfer. I have four years, a deployment, and a lot of memories under my belt. I am electing to come back in as an O-1 into the Army as I have no interest in the limited job prospects that an O-3 with no Army experience would bring me, and frankly I don't give a shit -- it's just 4 years. My (fairly promising, at least based on what the Army side said) goal is to eventually be infantry.
Coming in as a new Army officer, what should I expect, both from the position of coming from a different branch and generally as a "new guy" Army officer?
What stuff (most likely) stays the same coming a ship, specifically ship-life? What changes the most?
How best can I take care of my people while still accomplishing the mission? I know this looks very different between branches. It's always a delicate balance.
What does the "daily grind" of a combart arms community look like? What's the "unnecessary BS day-to-day" that you guys get up to? (I can think of plenty of examples in the Navy, but I'm not sure they translate 1:1).
BONUS: What are your best and worst interaction stories with your fresh LTs?
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Im 25 with a bachelors in CyberSecurity, also an Eagle Scout. Have not done much volunteer or team leadership since then. Nor do I have much work experiance.
Am I too uncompetitive for an OCS slot for 17X?
I spoke to a recruiter who mentioned going enlisted at E4 with 17C, then after 1 year of training and 1 of actual work, applying for OCS then.
Is that a realistic scenario or classic recruiter talk getting my hopes up in order to boost elistment numbers?
Prior medical history includes inactive IBS + depression from a couple years back.
Also, what are the timeframes for getting in with both of these options?
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Is it worth getting Emt certified or Paramedic certified before going Army? I got DQ at meps and was told I need to wait a year due to medication I was on last year. I'm trying to find something to fill my time for when I'm able to enlist next year. Is this a good idea or a waste of time?
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I have been recently promoted, and clothing and sales is currently out of stock of my current rank, so I am unable to update my AGSU. We have room and uniform inspections soon, and my first line is attempting to make me wear my AGSU with incorrect rank. I have been looking through AR670-1 as well as AR700-84 trying to see if there is a reg against this, but have been unsuccessful in finding one. If there isn’t, I’ll deal, but I’m not too keen on wearing a previous rank. Any help backed by regs would be appreciated
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I’m going National Guard. I’m still working through the beginning process with my recruiter. Here’s the catch: I wasn’t born in the US. I was born in Kazakhstan.
I was never naturalized because when I was adopted into my family in 2002, the Child Citizenship Act passed in 2000 stating that the amendment is “to provide for the automatic acquisition of U.S. citizenship when certain conditions have been met.” — I have met these conditions and am a legal citizen of 22 years (Section 320 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. This amendment states that I also do not need a certificate of citizenship, which I never applied for as I legally do not need one.)
I have a passport, a social security card, a legal photo ID and a birth certificate. I DO HAVE a permanent resident card, but it expired years ago. I was a baby when my parents got it and they never renewed it. However, I am a US Citizen. I’ve lived here my entire life. The problem is, my recruiter insists that I must have that Permanent Resident Card up to date. I would do it in a heartbeat, but it costs $500.
Why is my passport, ID, SS card or birth certificate not enough to prove my citizenship? I’m frustrated and my parents are getting short with me constantly asking about it.
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Kind of a situational question. My wife is scheduled for C Section June 21st and it looks like I may get PCS orders before then. If I do, and the kid comes, what do I do? Soonest my wife’s doc says she can move is 6 weeks postpartum and my wife can’t look after our first kid and newborn while she recovers from surgery. Is there anything I can do to report closer to the end of baby leave? I’m a geobachelor.
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I just have a couple questions about how having a GED will affect my enlistment. I've heard it makes you ineligible for bonuses, but what about contract options? Could I still get an Option 4 contract? Option 19? If not, how many college credits would I need to move into the Tier 1 education category?
also, how do you increase your chances of going to certain schools (Airborne, Air Assault, Ranger, etc) if it's not in your contract? Going in as a 68W (Combat Medic) if that makes a difference
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Is there some regulation against sending a SM on a deployment/rotation when they are very close to ETS? Say 6 months out?
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Im a dumbass and made and said a lot of stupid ass shit that some hater who had it out for me has been basically (not really) 'blackmailing' me with that was on my laptop (private, never uploaded) which he hacked into . It was a bunch of questionable shit I said that basically makes me paranoid reasonably that I could possibly be court martial'd but I was never arrested or anything, and I'm sure the guy would upload it again if I joined the Military just to tarnish my good name. I said all this when I was 18 , but basically this dude came to my house and threatened my family with a knife and I responded, 'not so good' , and as a result, I was basically 5150'd and had lied to the people saying I was suicidal resulting in a medical documentation which has made me fearful of ever going to MEPS. So at the time I was 'isolated' so in attempt to expose the fact that there was a legitimate danger I reasonably tried to court attention on Twitter and basically did and said everything that could ever allow me to hold a security clearance before deleting it.
My perception of the event was that he was threatening my family with a knife, but to the outside world, he simply slashed my families tires. Basically he baited me and fell for it. There was much more to the story but if I could go back in time I probably would not have reacted the way I did but I was 18 and my mind was barely developing.
​
I was 5150'd and I was told I could never hold public office and I am barred from the Medical field . This of course was a lie, but it's BASICALLY on my Medical record and it's a huge red flag. So naturally, unable to join the Military, I was unable to complete my mission and of course, was put on medication for some time (7 months) until I can figure out what to do. So I been working warehouse jobs ever since that day . I am 23 years old now, the incident happened when I was 18. I was and still am a cross country runner who is fit and healthy , who can complete the physical requirements just fine but the 'Moral' and 'Medical' is what's preventing me from joining, open to debate. I haven't made the same dumb mistake of reacting to my families tires being slashed since and learned from that experience .
​
Obviously the Police knows what was on my laptop because this dude went around with the unauthorized material he was not allowed to have and actually put the content in DVD's around the city hoping someone would pick it up and read it , and I actually worked at a warehouse which actually had a police officer who worked there at the warehouse to check the hard drives for CP (i dont know the deal about that) , and he found the very same DVD filled with the content of my basically unhinged responses that I never uploaded to the internet .
​
Basically this dude mentally ruined my life but I wasn't the only 1 he has done this to, he has hacked into multiple people's laptops and slashed other people's tires before and distributed information and he has been arrested in the past .
​
I was wondering if I could be court martial'd for unprofessional conduct before I even join the military or am I just overthinking this? I basically had this huge 4 hour clip of a rant about his twitter account on my laptop that was perfectly constitutional legal but if you took things out of context it sounds like something that would have me arrested if I was in the military , and I never uploaded it, nor planned to. maybe it's just all in my head but as you can imagine , the real problem isn't my speeches that were on my laptop but the 5150'd , which was at the time and information I had at my disposable,a completely reasonable reaction to a violent threat.
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PCS’ing to Schofield tomorrow, any tips?
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Does anyone know if you still have to have a physical copy of your profile on you? I remember reading somewhere that you don't and your commander can look at it
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I recently graduated college and am looking for advice in terms of what I should expect/request in my contract for 68W MOS. I got my B.A. in cellular biology in the beginning of May and have been set on enlisting since my junior year; now that I'm in the last couple of steps with my recruiter before going to MEPS, I wanted to know if there was anything I should ask for based on my scores/degree (520 MCAT, 99 ASVAB, 146 GT) in terms of rank or guaranteed admission to schools (such as Airborne) coming in. I am looking at the 2-year contract as of now because I do want to apply to medical school down the line. If I enjoy my time, I am open to staying longer in the Army. However, there are some characteristics I currently need to work on that I know enlistment will provide (as opposed to OCS which would mean an extended contract) in addition to education benefits. Also, the alternative would have been doing a gap year in a lab or clinic which doesn't pay much better and is something I have done my fair share of. Any help is appreciated; thank you.
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This is kind of a weird question but i really want to join the army but my family is telling me that it’s impossible for me to join because unfortunately my parents passed by suicide and that alone will disqualify me. I’ve tried googling it and looking all over the internet to find a. Answer but I can’t find it. Is there any truth to that? Thanks if answered.
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I’m a drill right now and I’m looking at being Force reclassed and looking for a new MOS. I saw 51C and was curious if anyone knew what the day to day looked like? Or if anyone knew of any MOSs that were chill 9-5 jobs.
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How does the average person become an officer in the 75th or special forces? Even for support roles, don't most people have to go through the qualification training and fail?
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Do you ever feel remorse for the innocent civilians you slaughter in the name of imperialism and the military industrial complex?
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I've always had a draw to service, but my athletic opportunities usually kept me from it. Out of high school, I had the opportunity to play college baseball and passed up on trying the academy route. Once I got halfway through college, I wanted to try ROTC, but I was a starter on the baseball team and balls deep in a mechanical engineering course load, so it didn't seem feasible to add to my plate.
Now, I'm going on 24 with 2 years of experience as an ME in product development. Is there a military route for someone like me who does have a college degree, but is beyond the point of an ROTC college program? Is my specific degree useful for the military?
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I'm joining the Army soon, within a month or two. I've come up with an MOS list I made based on what I'm interested in (this is NOT a list of my available jobs based on my ASVAB score, just some jobs that sounded interesting based on the field I was looking into). I was mostly considering Logistics and Supply, but I am open to other potential fields, and jobs that aren't in the list below. Like I said, I want to do something in logistics and supply, but more so, just something non-combative that allows me to travel to most bases. What do you guys think about it? Any recommendations? I do plan to do something in law enforcement after I get out, but my MOS does not have to relate to that. Here is the list. The first two are the ones I'm currently considering, and the ones in parentheses are the ones I'm interested in.
(Cargo Specialist 88H)
(Unit Supply Specialist 92Y)
(Automated Logistics Specialist 92A)
(Ammunition Specialist 89B)
Ammunition Stock Control and Accounting Specialist 89A
(Corrections/Detention Specialist 31E)
Culinary Specialist 92G
Medical Logistics Specialist 68J
(Military Police 31B)
(Motor Transport Operator 88M)
Petroleum Supply Specialist 92F
Transportation Management Coordinator 88N
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Can someone please answer this question? If by some chance a person is granted a moral waiver for one felony possession charge on their record Will that allow you to join infantry or be around guns in general? Or would you have to have your firearm rights restored?
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Do you guys still have to have an NBC mask as part of the uniform when out in the field? If yes, do you still practice going into full MOPP gear?
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Completely off topic to Army. Has anyone used a gaems vanguard with the steam deck? Found one for cheap for field purposes but I can't find anything that says it works or not with the deck.
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30 year old with great Asvab and physical tests, no medical problems other than anxiety counseling in 2020. Problem 1: I have a large hand tattoo on my right hand. It’s a animal with some foliage and stuff. It is not on knuckles but descends from half sleeve down wrist and over top of hand.
Issue 2: I was discharged from navy boot camp in 2019. Long story. Mental health and personal reasons. I have an re-4 jfc on my dd 214. ( navy parting gift) I have authorized documents of treatment for my condition signed from doctor and no treatment or problems with mental health since early 2020 and no medication ever needed. Is there any shot I’d get approved for enlistment in the army ? @7hillsrecruiting
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Can someone please describe the process of renrolling into DLC? I did not complete it in the 720 day window however I am not barred from reenlistment (yet).
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Hey there ! I’m working things out to go to sign a 37F contract in the USAR soon since I had a high enough score on my ASVAB, but my recruiter confirmed that I would have to go to FSPC or Fat Camp due to being 2% over what’s allowed for body fat before I attend basic. I don’t mind basically getting paid to workout and learn about nutrition, but I’d love tips and just overall things to prep for before I have to ship out to it.
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i got Fort Sill as my first duty station im a 94T and i have family how is the on post housing or should i just rent a house off post
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I have a uniform question that i can not seem to figure out using ar670-1 or the pam currently i have been wearing my improvised hot weather combat uniform but the one i was issued back in 2019 apparently is the first generation that has the mesh lining in the pants and no velcro on the top of the shoulder pockets and my first line was telling me he doesnt think this is authorized anymore since a newer version was released so he asked me to look into the regulations but i cant find anything saying if i can or cant where it the most i know as of right now is the ihwcu is authorized but i have an older version apparently but its also what they issued me at ocie so im trying to find if anyone can help me out or knows if i can still where this i dont wanna buy a whole other uniform just because this doesnt have velcro on the top of these pockets
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What is the most realistic special operations group someone can join for the average person?
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Do you need a DA Form 1610 to attend the BAC? Fort Moore's website states you cannot attend BAC in a leave status, but how would anyone walk on if that's the case? And soldiers do walk on, I've heard firsthand.
I'm attempting to attend Airborne on leave before I PCS, is it possible? I just commissioned, and will be working for Cadet Command all summer before I PCS to BOLC.
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Can i join the ranger Special forces with a red/green color blind?
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Is someone able to join if blind in one eye
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As a prior enlisted, when I go to meps will the councilor just tell me my duty station I’m headed to after I pick my Mos? Will I have any say? How does that work from your experience
Any personal opinions and experienced insight is appreciated
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If someone becomes an intel officer, can they tryout for the 75th or the special forces?
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I have just returned from TDY, for Family separation pay, do I need to fill out 1561, or is it a special pay request on IPPS-A. Can’t find any answer from S-1, or other SM. Any help would be appreciative.
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I want to join the army, Can I pick a supply Mos with a ASVAB score of 41 and CL of 90 ?? The army website says yes I just wanted to know if the website is accurate. (92A/92y) Mos
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How long does it take for my rank to update in my email? I was promoted to SGT yesterday and it didn't update yet. It updated automatically for others in my unit. Do I need to update my CAC?
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I'm enlisting in the Army Reserve as a 35L and soon to go to basic in a few weeks. I have a couple of questions that are hovering over me since I'm counting down the days to basic training. I'm a lot older then most of the trainees are going to be in basic. I fear if I get injured or recycle for whatever reason. Will they change my mos because I didn't meet the allotted time slot for 35L AlT? Will I become over holdover until the next class? How frequent are the courses if held over? And also to add if any directions toward course work should I start studying to familiarize myself with?
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Anyone have an idea on what finance battalions are? Gonna be shipping out as 36B and I generally understand what the job will entail but lots of the comments I’ve read say “oh they’re reforming 36B into finance battalions”. Is this a good or bad thing?
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Prior service coming in; USMC to Army, E5. I’ve already gotten some good anti-cringe advice on general differences between the branches of service, but if anybody has advice on stuff to bring/not bring to AIT (I only got a bootcamp packing list) or tips I’m all ears.
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Is it common for people to become shorter from the ruck marches?
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Can you have nicotine in AIT, may be useful to add that I’m doing split training where I do basic one summer then do AIT the next.
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How does reclassing work? My window will be hitting soon and it’s time to move on. Will I have any Mos available to me? Duty station as well? I heard a lot about undeover strength Mos and how they affect reclassing. Any info on how it works would be great. Thanks fellas
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Is having a iep when I was in school a disqualifyer if not do I need a waivet
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I can barely do 5 push-ups, and I’m leaving for army basic combat training in 1 week, any recommendations?
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Pollen Allergies @ BCT Jackson
I am shipping out to basic training at the end of June. Has anyone had any experience with sick call during training and/or reception when dealing with seasonal/pollen allergies?
If this affected you, did you get prescribed anything or go to sick call any once in a while? I lived in GA for a stint and the pollen down south was not my friend so trying to prepare for the worst if possible. Not taking any meds right now.
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Can MPs join the 82 Airborne
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just graduated AIT, would it be possible to trade my duty station with another soldier for both of our benefits and we're both consenting ? he's got schofield hawaii and i have fort george meade maryland, im a pv2 he's a PFC and we have the exact same training and MOS? thanks.
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Layout:
— Individual Team News + Stone’s Cold Takes
— Miscellaneous/Other NFL News
— Restaurant of the Week - Pittsburgh
Arizona Cardinals:

• RB James Conner likes being an underdog
• HC Jonathan Gannon wanted to move forward with who was all in on the team when asked about DeAndre Hopkins
• Gained $4.21m in cap space after June 1st deadline
• QB Clayton Tune could work his way into a starting spot
• Potentially interested in moving on from LB Isaiah Simmons

This team cannot unload folks fast enough it seems. They are now looking to potentially move on from LB Isaiah Simmons who in many folks eyes has not lived up to the hype from the draft. WE shall see if they can get anything for him if they do decide to move on. The storyline I am most interested in watching this year here is first how long Kyler Murray will be out and second how rookie QB Clayton Tune is developing. It seems like they took him so they could try out a young QB in the interim while Murray is working his way back. Apparently thus far he has been doing well in OTAs.
Atlanta Falcons:

• Team expects TE Kyle Pitts to be ready for season opener
• Ditching gradient uniforms and will wear throwbacks 3 times

Not too much news from the Falcons but many will be excited to hear about Kyle Pitts expected to be back for the season opener. Hopefully this is the year he can really break out but a lot will depend on the QB Desmond Ridder actually being able to throw him the ball unlike the past quarterbacks he has had who have not made things easy.
Baltimore Ravens:

• WR Zay Flowers is impressing with his route running capabilities early on

Good news here because receiver seems to be a position where the Ravens have struggled to get good production. With new OC Todd Monken that should start to change and with an added emphasis on the passing game it inevitably should change as more throws are made.
Buffalo Bills:

• Rumored that QB Josh Allen will be featured on the cover of Madden
• Signed:
  
  • DT Ed Oliver to a 4-year $68m extension with $45m guaranteed
  • WR Marcell Ateman
  • OT Brandon Shell
• Supposedly out on WR DeAndre Hopkins
  
• Expect Edge Von Miller to be back for the season opener
  

Great move here signing Ed Oliver to his extension. He is a key piece of that d-line and helps hold them together. I personally don’t believe they or really any of the other teams that have said they are out on DeAndre Hopkins actually are. To me it appears more to be a message saying they are not going to be paying him the money that WR Odell Beckham got earlier this offseason. Only time will tell. Great news for the team that EDGE Von Miller should be back by the season opener. Personally though I would take my time with him and would be overly cautious to make sure he is fully healthy. Hopefully that is by week 1!
Carolina Panthers:

• QB Bryce Young is already impressing with his poise
• Plan to use some Deebo Samuel-like packages for WR Laviska Shenault

The hype appears to be real for the Bryce Young but it is what every team says about their rookie quarterback who is a top pick so hard to decipher how folks are actually feeling. I am excited about how Frank Reich will use WR Laviska Shenault because I have always been impressed with his athletic ability and expected him to break out more. It seems this could have been the type of role he has been waiting for.
Chicago Bears:

• Have other sites in mind potentially for a new stadium besides Arlington
• QB Justin Fields donated $10,000 to the special olympics
• WR DJ Moore has been performing well in OTAs
• Stadium is at risk after property tax assessment

A lot of news around the future stadium of the Bears. It appeared a couple weeks ago that everything was moving along as planned and no issues had come up. This week there was nothing but concerns and problems. I wonder if these are all real storylines or if it is something they are using to try and negotiate more with the government to get help with the stadium. In more football news is appears that WR DJ Moore and QB Justin Fields are enjoying working together and developing a good connection. This is important to give Fields someone he can trust like he did his receivers at Ohio State.
Cincinnati Bengals:

• WR Tyler Boyd feels they one-upped the Chiefs signing Orlando Brown Jr.
• DE Sam Hubbard excited for what’s next this season
• Will hold joint practices with the Packers

Not too much football news here but they appear to be ready to take on the Chiefs again this year and make a deep playoff run. Also, it appears at this point that the team will keep RB Joe Mixon based on comments from the team and HC Zac Taylor. This offense per usual will be an exciting one to watch.
Cleveland Browns:

• Strong possibility that WR DeAndre Hopkins ends up here
  
  • QB Deshaun Watson is working hard to recruit him
• DC Jim Schwartz sees a benefit in d-linemen playing fewer snaps to stay fresh
  
• Gained $10.9m in cap space after June 1st release deadline
  

Good news and good vibes are finally coming out of Cleveland. Feels like it has been while. QB Deshaun Watson appears to be benefitting from having a full offseason and getting work in with his new receivers. He has been pushing hard for Hopkins and the Browns would make sense as a good landing spot for him given the prior relationship Watson and Hopkins had during their time in Houston. I have been pleasantly surprised by how well things appear to be going so far this offseason.
Dallas Cowboys:

• Started long-term extension talks with CB Trevon Diggs
• WR Antonio Callaway was arrested Saturday in Miami
• Micah Parsons is more concerned with making impactful plays on defense
• Supposedly out on WR DeAndre Hopkins
• RB Tony Pollard is a little ahead of schedule with rehab
• Gained $10.9m in cap space after June 1st deadline

Similar to the Bills I don’t think the Cowboys are actually out on Hopkins but probably sending a message that he needs to bring down his asking price. I wonder sometimes if they are still saving room for RB Ezekiel Elliott to come back here and play especially with them gaining the $10.9m in cap space after the deadline. Also, hopefully the team can get something done with CB Trevon Diggs sooner rather than later because he has been an impactful piece on defense despite the big plays he occasionally gives up because he can change a game with one of his interceptions.
Denver Broncos:

• HC Sean Payton puts a heavy emphasis on the importance of Guards in the NFL
• Released RB Jacques Patrick
• Gained $3.75m in cap space after June 1st deadline
• Signed:
  
  • K Elliott Fry

Not too much news here but they did find their replacement for K Brandon McManus in Elliott Fry. I would say less news from this team this offseason is better because ever since QB Russell Wilson struggled it seemed like the media was out to get him and the team any chance they had. HC Sean Payton must be running a pretty tight ship.
Detroit Lions:

• OC Ben Johnson expects offense to take a huge step forward this season
• RB Jahymr Gibbs has been standing out in practice running and catching the ball
• OT Penei Sewell is embracing leadership role
• S Tracy Walker expects to be fully cleared for camp

All good news this week which should be good for morale. Seems they have strung together a couple good weeks during their OTAs. Great to see that RB Jahymr Gibbs is getting some reps in and showcasing his abilities that made the team feel the need to spend a high draft pick on him. Great to see as well that Penei Sewell at the young age of 22 taking on a leadership role and getting good work in as well. With that said OC Ben Johnson could be prepping and is expecting for the offense to have a big year.
Green Bay Packers:

• WR Romeo Doubs doesn’t think there will be a regression with QB Jordan Love
• OL David Bakhtiari says disrespectful to say they are rebuilding
• Will hold joint practices with the Bengals

It appears that it may be a bit tough in the post Aaron Rodgers era as expected. However, it does sound like there is less front office drama now that they are not having to work with him in the offseason. Time will tell whether the drama was more caused by a lack of good communication as Rodgers claimed recently or by the former Packers QB himself.
Houston Texans:

• QB CJ Stroud is ahead of where the team expected him to be at this point
• RT Tytus Howard is in line for a big extension
• Released DT Taylor Stallworth with injury settlement
• Will hold joint practices with the Dolphins and Saints

Good news about CJ Stroud but again as I mentioned with Bryce Young it is hard to find a team that drafted a top QB in the draft not raving about their quarterbacks progress at this point. The joint practices they have setup will be great for QB CJ Stroud. The Dolphins and Saints should each have tough defenses this year and will give Stroud a bit better of an idea of what to expect from an NFL defense in a real game.
Indianapolis Colts:

• QB Anthony Richardson is looking really good overall
• Worked out WR Breshad Perriman

Looks like the Colts are trying to get receiver help but haven’t decided on any yet. This is the team that should go out and get Hopkins. They need a true #1 receiver and Josh Downs while I think he will be really good would benefit from having a big bodied possession type receiver in Hopkins. Also, it would give QB Anthony Richardson more of a safety net in terms of a WR that can help him progress and see things that he may not have picked up on otherwise.
Jacksonville Jaguars:

• K Brandon McManus called special teams coach to express interest in the team after being cut
• EDGE Josh Allen is the only player under contract not attending voluntary OTAs
• Being cautious with WR Calvin Ridley during OTAs
• Plan to have a RB committee approach

I am really excited for the Jaguars this season. They are kind of the forgotten team in the NFL most years but appear to be poised to make a deep playoff run this year. WR Calvin Ridley is going to be a huge difference maker this year and should benefit from QB Trevor Lawrence continuing to progress going into his 3rd NFL season.
Kansas City Chiefs:

• Wife of Chiefs owner Norma Hunt passed at the age of 85
• Supposedly out on WR DeAndre Hopkins
• WR Justyn Ross has the trust of QB Patrick Mahomes

Sad news to hear about Norma Hunt’s passing as the whole league mourned and sent their condolences. They are also supposedly out on Hopkins which I believe means they are really saying we need you to come down on price. The Chiefs though per usual have revealed though their secret weapon in WR Justyn Ross who many had forgotten about due to him sitting out with an injury his rookie year. It looks like Ross may be back to prior form when he was making plays at Clemson with Trevor Lawrence.
Las Vegas Raiders:

• Open to listening to trade offers for WR Hunter Renfrow
• HC Josh McDaniels is not worried about QB Jimmy Garoppolo’s foot surgery

Even though the media and some fans were starting to worry about Jimmy G’s foot surgery it does not appear McDaniels has any worries about him missing time because of it. Will be interesting to see what the team ends up doing with Renfrow with all signs from earlier in the offseason pointing towards a release or trade.
Los Angeles Chargers:

• WR Quentin Johnson has been impressive according to teammates Keenan Allen
• OT Rashawn Slater is at 100% and has been for quite some time

Not much news here but it was great news to get confirmation from OT Rashawn Slater regarding his health and to hear WR Keenan Allen’s thoughts on rookie WR Quentin Johnson. This team should give us what they think they will every year and go far in the playoff this year.
Los Angeles Rams:

• DC Raheem Morris helped save drowning child
• Signed:
  
  • WR Tyler Johnson

Not much news here but signed WR Tyler Johnson who can help them make some big splashy plays on offense. DC Raheem Morris helped saved a drowning child and credited his AED training. Always cool to hear these stories about NFL coaches and players leaping into action to help and save other in the community.
Miami Dolphins:

• Hope to sign DT Christian Wilkins to an extension before the season
• QB Tua Tagovailoa is completely healthy and showing signs of growth as a leader
• Real possibility they end up with RB Dalvin Cook this year
• Opted to only use 6 of 10 available days of OTAs
• Gained $13.6m in cap space after June 1st deadline
• Will hold joint practices with the Texans

This team appears to be click on all levels so far this offseason and there appears to be a lot more good coming with the team working to get a Wilkins extension done before the season and may even still end up with RB Dalvin Cook here soon. Tua being completely healthy at this point doesn’t feel like much of a surprise but it does appear that he is trying to take on more of a leadership role after finding his confidence last year. My main worry though with Tua is that last year he still was very much a rhythm quarterback in my mind so when he got knocked off that rhythm he had some really bad games. However, when he was able to keep in rhythm he at times looked like the best passer in the league. It will be key this offseason now that he knows the offense to be able to play off rhythm when necessary and make those plays that the top quarterbacks in the league make if he wanting to take the next step.
Minnesota Vikings:

• Seems that only thing left for RB Dalvin Cook is an announcement of how he will be leaving the team by trade or by getting cut
• Head Coach Kevin O’Connell described RB Alexander Mattison as a every down RB
• Paid off their debt on stadium 23 years earlier saving taxpayers $226m in interest
• Expected that WR Justin Jefferson to be highest paid WR when he signs his extension
• Will have joint practices with Tennessee

It appears that the Vikings are in a holding pattern and I imagine are hoping to get a trade package they approve of for RB Dalvin Cook. Sooner or later though it appears that Dalvin Cook will not be with the Vikings this year. Big win though for the fans and locals in Minnesota with the team paying off their stadium early and saving taxpayers a bunch of money. Might get some more buy in from good press like that.
New England Patriots:

• QB Mac Jones is aiming to earn the respect of his teammates

Not much news here but it appears things are moving along really well in comparison with last year at this time. QB Mac Jones seems happy and is working hard. It will be tough for this Patriots team with how stacked the division is but maybe a big move to get Hopkins and some improvement from the offense and Mac Jones and who knows they may be right up there with everyone else in the division.
New Orleans Saints:

• DE Cam Jordan will play for the team as long as he wants
• QB Jameis Winston feels that he is still a starting QB in the league
• Excited to WR Michael Thomas to be ready for camp
• Will hold joint practices with the Texans
• HC Dennis Allen had Jon Gruden attend OTAs in order to aid offense with QB Derek Carr
• TE Juwan Johnson has been studying Julian Edelman tape at QB Derek Carr’s urging

Another team where things just seem to be clicking so far is here in New Orleans. QB Derek Carr seems to be doing a good job taking on a leadership role and working with teammates such as TE Juwan Johnson. Things will be going even better if WR Michael Thomas can actually return for camp and find a way to play near a level that he used to. Right now in a wide open NFC South it appears that this team will be the favorites to win it going into the season.
New York Giants:

• Did homework on WR DeAndre Hopkins and are now supposedly not interested in pursuing him
• Officially added Ryan Cowden as executive advisor the general manager
• QB Daniel Jones is ok with rookie center John Michael Schmitz using “dead snap” technique

Not much here which may be a good thing for a New York team to get a break from all the media. This season will be an interesting one with how the team went all in on QB Daniel Jones. It kind of feels like besides the Eagles the rest of the division is up for grabs with no true strong contender emerging yet.
New York Jets:

• QB Aaron Rodgers has enjoyed the communication within the organization
• Signed:
  
  • OL Yodny Cajuste
• Released OL Eric Smith
  
• The team and Quinnen Williams are not far off in contract talks
  

Good news on the Quinnen Williams front and in keeping Aaron Rodgers happy. Williams and the team are not far off in contract talks which hopefully means something will get done here very soon. Rodgers has been raving about the Jets communication skills which was his main gripe with the Packers. Now lets just make it clear that he does not need to be pulling the sled.
Philadelphia Eagles:

• Team is excited for QB Jalen Hurts to make another huge leap
• Offered to trade for QB Russell Wilson but Wilson did not want to play in Philly
• DT Jordan Davis broke a blocking sled

Man what a difference one decision can make. Jalen Hurts I imagine would have been in Seattle had the trade happened for Russell Wilson. I bet Eagles fans are happy this didn’t pan out but it does not mean they need to cut Wilson any slack for not wanting to play in Philly if these teams meet in future seasons or end up playing each other in the Super Bowl. Eagles appear setup to be the main threat in the NFC.
Pittsburgh Steelers:

• First round pick Broderick Jones getting 1st-team reps at Left Tackle

Not much out of Pittsburgh per usual but the good news is that Broderick Jones is progressing nicely and is already getting 1st-team reps at Left Tackle. I am sure QB Kenny Pickett is pleased with that.
San Francisco 49ers:

• S Ji’Ayir Brown is already taking first team reps and has stood out in OTAs
• GM John Lynch feels QB Trey Lance has had a really quality offseason
• Very encouraged by progress and throwing session QB Brock Purdy had
• DL Arik Armstead very excited about adding Javon Hargrave to the group
• RB Christian McCaffrey excited to have a full offseason with HC Kyle Shanahan
• Plan to make DE Nick Bosa highest paid defensive player

Things are moving along just fine for the 49ers. Exciting to hear that S Ji’Ayir Brown is making good progress and apparently had 4 or 5 interceptions during OTAs. I imagine the team is also very pleased with the progress QB Brock Purdy is making in his recovery from elbow surgery. He appears to be on pace with the original timeline. If this team can figure it out at the QB position they just might be the most complete all around team up there with the Eagles.
Seattle Seahawks:

• HC Pete Carroll expects his team to be aggressive when returning kicks and expects more squib kicks to be used
• WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba has been extremely impressive
• Signed:
  
  • Benjie Franklin
  • Montrae Braswell
• Cut:
  
  • Forrest Merrill
  • LaTrell Bumphus

Gotta love HC Pete Carroll. It seems like so far it has been pretty unanimous that all those that are playing or coaching football do not love the new kickoff rules. I am sure folks will find ways to take advantage of it though. Once again this week WR Jaxon Smith Njigba was impressive and should be establishing himself within that offense. Seahawks could very well be a sleeper team in the NFC that was good last year but that folks are paying a ton of attention to this year.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers:

• Antoine Winfield Jr. is expected to play Free Safety this year
• Respect is a key factor in the quarterback battle that is ongoing
• WR Chris Godwin feels his explosiveness coming back

This team has all the big name weapons at receiver one could ask for as long as they stay healthy. It was great to hear that Chris Godwin is getting his explosiveness back. Now not surprisingly it comes down to the QB battle and a big part of that is gaining respect from those veteran players and coaches in the building. I still feel like this battle is QB Baker Mayfield’s to lose at this point.
Tennessee Titans:

• Longtime executive Bob Hyde passed away
• QB Will Levis had a rough week at practice
• P Brett Kern announced his retirement
• Will have joint practice with Minnesota
• Signed:
  
  • DL Jaleel Johnson

Sad news this past week here as well with the passing of Bob Hyde. Also, finally some negative news about one of the Quarterbacks from this year’s draft. Will Levis has been struggling. However, this should not be viewed as a bad sign because every rookie is going to struggle and Levis with his situation has the benefit of time.
Washington Commanders:

• The Josh Harris bid after making some changes is inching closer to full approval
• CB Emmanuel Forbes has been thriving in the slot
• QB Sam Howell has looked the part and is taking command of the offense thus far
• OC Eric Bieniemy wants everyone to be like WR Terry McLaurin
• Gained $8.37m in cap space after June 1st deadline
• Released CB Cameron Dantzler
• Releasing G Andrew Norwell once he passes physical

Seems we are inching closer and closer to the Josh Harris Group’s bid being fully accepted by the owners after some minor adjustments. From the actual team and players it sounds like things are going really well and maybe better than a lot of folks expected. CB Emmanuel Forbes has been doing well in the slot and QB Sam Howell is looking the part and taking charge. The Commanders will be a fun team to watch this year and see how they end up when it is all said and done.
Miscellaneous/Other NFL News:

• Still no announcement as to who will be the team featured on Hard Knocks
• CB Damar Hamlin is leading a multi-city CPAED tour
• Several NFL teams are waiting for RB Dalvin Cook to be cut
• Yannick Ngakoue wants a multi-year deal with a Super Bowl contender
• Chiefsaholic fan is still on the loose
• Tom Brady is certain he is done playing and has tried to make that clear to other teams
• RB Ezekiel Elliott is staying in shape
• Executive are nervous about WR DeAndre Hopkins ability to separate and run at this point in his career
• Less than 100 days from the NFL season

​
Restaurant of the Week: (Pittsburgh - Burgatory)
Get excited Pittsburgh fans and all folks going to a game here! Burgatory is only a half mile from the stadium and has some of the best food so far from the restaurants that have been featured. One of my personal favorites is the Piggy Butter & Jelly. Yes, that is a burger with peanut butter and jelly on it. Don’t question it just try it. However, if for some reason you do not my other recommendation would be The Triple B which is a Bison, Beer Cheese, and Bacon burger. Hence the name Triple B. You can’t really go wrong with anything on the menu and the important thing though is that you don’t forget to grab a shake as well. My personal favorite is the Oreo Peanut Butter Pie shake. They are open every day starting at 11am and closer at 9pm everyday except for Friday and Saturday when they close at 11pm. Hop on over and enjoy this delicious food when in town for a game!

Before I start this, I want to express how grateful I am for my internship. It pays me well; I live in a good city, and the people around me are super bright, and overall, I am not taking this for granted. That being said, I feel like a failure! For context, I am working for a big company in tech; I am 20 and am a business student with previous experience in programming. I do not feel like I am doing an excellent job at work. I am only an intern, but I struggle with my tasks. I am currently working on a final project and feel lost about where to start and go. I meet with people, gather information, feel good, and present it to my manager; from his reaction, it feels like it's not enough. I ask for feedback, which he gives, but I feel like nothing that I am presenting is ever getting recognized (probably because it's not enough for them ? Maybe they expect more ? I don't know). The last interns were all engineers and in their masters, so I feel like I am not only disappointing everyone but myself too and severely underperforming (for the record though this is not a 100% tech job, it is half business half tech).
This feeling of failure is getting stronger, and it's becoming tough for me to want to keep working on my projects and feel confident in myself. I find that I get the "Monday scaries" and I overall realized that I am probably underqualified for the job. I sign up for a lot of other opportunities within my job to try and make up for what it seems like I am lacking. Any advice? I've realized this job is not for me, but I do not want to disappoint, and I want to deliver the best that I can because I still have a lot of time to work here.

Hi everyone - looking for a bit of advice and also sharing experiences about now versus then. Plus issues related to the lack of agency/control I feel we have even as grown ass adults against physicians who believe their jobs to catch us lying and make assumptions about our lives, while paternally patting us on the head like small children. Between pop culture currently having big nostalgia moments right now (Thank You for your service, Judy Blume), plus the fact I've got a tween daughter, I can help but remember the special hellscape that existed for me from when I was a few years younger than my daughter all the way through 8th grade. During that time I really did try to fit in, something that in hindsight only made things worse. I just remember clothing being tough to find. And while I didn't get boobs until I was practically in college, I somehow grew the bottom half of a full grown woman by the time I'd finished 5th grade except for the length of my inseam was stuck in third grade, as was the space where a waist should be. My mom was so supportive and thankfully, because she could sew, did what she couple to alter the jeans of the day (jordache & Calvin's from the JRS section initially, but the misses by 6th grade) and sometimes made things for me that I liked but weren't available. So I looked nice enough, but the kids were merciless when teasing and I was bullied to the extreme at my school, living in fear of changing for gym and wondering how many times that day I'd get hit in the back of my head with a basketball. (Not surprising that 30+ years later I found it tough to take my son to BB practice because of the intense sounds and smells nearly knocked me into a full on panic, but I managed). Anyway, by early high school I found myself and my people through the music I fell in love with, so despite this meaning I was a goth living in the American south during the satanic panic, people being a little scared of me before they got to know me was WAAAAAAY better than the fat shaming & torture 24/7. Fast forward to now, and my daughter will be starting 5th grade in the new school year. So far so good with the teasing through 4th. She hasn't made close friends but has Cubs friends. she likes what she likes. It really is the following year I fear, middle school, when all hell breaks loose. But I am also worried about 5th grade too as each of my older kids had tough times then as all the hormones ramp up and it can all go a lot Hunger games with mean girls. So advice/perspective needed: If you've helped a daughter get through the middle years of clothes sizing awkwardness, how did you do it? -Are there stores or brands you recommend, either online or brick and mortar? -My middle school experience was particularly bad because it was a small private school where I now get would take the kids public schools would reject. My mother thought she was protecting us ha! But what was regular public school girls gym like? She we just plan to find an off campus PE option? - can you recommend any resources to help with her long list of food rejections and very short list of foods she will eat? We don't label food good or bad or make anyone eat anything or restrict (unless it means there won't be any dinner left for someone who hasn't eaten yet and one of my teenagers is going in for round two). I am concerned about her lack of calcium intake as she only has what she gets in milk with cereal. She won't eat or drink any other dairy products except vanilla ice cream, but that can upset her tummy. She doesn't eat bread either, which means with the exception of cake, we don't have to put much effort in keeping her away from gluten. I know - one more quirk inherited, ha at least that one isn't from my side as well. My husband & I had no idea just how much neurodiversity we had going on in ourselves (and some of us cough not me still refuse to believe they have ADHD like the rest of us) and the rest of our families. It is beyond frustrating the assumptions made by society about fat kids and what foods/how much they eat. I honestly think my daughter isn't eating enough based on myplate meal plans. And one of her cousins has ARFID. Of course treatment was delayed by the assumption it was anorexia and the refusal to eat was by choice and throwing up afterwards assumed to be self-induced. I had a similar issue at one point. All but one of the people I saw in the medical field wanted to high-five me for finally being in a 'normal' BMI and/or refusing to believe it was a plumbing issue and I was simply in denial about being bulimic. At the exact same time a new pain mismanagement specialist refused to believe the same plumbing problems meant I could not safely take naproxen. I had records & imaging reports available but he told me he needed his own done and until then I wasn't to be trusted that I wasn't just a drug seeker. He tossed me sample bottles of Naproxen coated with nexium. Pain got too terrible so I tried them for a week or so. Two weeks after I had that appointment (and also an upperGI to confirm it was a plumbing issue), I coughed up a few speckles of blood. GI doc, the only goody In this story told me to come in the next day. But early the next morning I woke up with terrible cramps and the need to go. As I stood up I realised I was in shock as I collapsed straight down onto my butt and heard a crack followed by bolts of lightning shocks of pain. As I tried to make it I realised our bathroom floor was covered in bloody grossness and that I was clearly bleeding internally. Fast forward to getting to the ER woozy with shock my husband couldn't get anyone to bring a stretcher and it's a blur but they put in a central line while I was awake - SCARY. My Gi doc was notified and when they went in with the scope my oesophagus had a new feature - a very deep hole on a vein that wasn't in the series he'd taken just two week before! After they finished my blood and plasma transfusions next stop was X-rays. So on top of the ulcer I had two compression fractures, L1 & L2. I wore a brace a month before having surgery to secure them. At 42 years old I had lost an inch of height & was diagnosed with osteoporosis. I have to wonder will it still be like this when our kids become the grownups. Or will it be worse?! I can't help but think dieting since I was 8 and losing and regaining the same 100lbs surely wasn't good for my bones! I so much want my daughter to not go through the same shit!

Here's what I have:
I am a graduate student in nursing setting up to make 28+ an hour (currently making 20$/ hr for 24 hr per week right now)

1. I have 6k in student loans
   
2. I have 5k in credit card debt
   
3. 600$ left in car debt
   
4. No savings
   
5. some 401k from my job. (idk how much)
   
6. No emergency fund (but I am planning on starting one)
   

I wanna start increasing my income, lowering my expenses, start on some assets (idk how to start how to make my money work on their own), and lowering my liabilities.
Short term goal:
- learning how to manage my money (currently reading: rich dad poor dad, 12 pillars to success, and philosophy of money)
- start on investing (idk where to start and where to invest)
- understanding how taxes work and how to lower it
Long term goal: probably in 20+ years which I would be 45 years old
- My assets will cover half of my expenses or cover all
Any tips on where or how to start on my plan? (my circle of people do not have knowledge nor experience when it comes to managing money, so I went here to ask you all).

I hope this is the right place and someone can tell me what may have been going on in my village. I moved here a few weeks ago. It's a small village in the heart of Russia and my parents and I came here because things start to get really bad in Moscow and my father lost his job. I don't know why we had to move to this isolated village, so far away from civilization. Maybe my parents wanted peace and quiet? To escape the things in that city, the poisoned minds?
The houses here had all been far below average in price. Almost everyone who lives here has moved here recently.
But, there are crazy rumors about this village that people tell each other. It was found abandoned in the mid-nineties. Where everyone went, no one knows. They say that no signs of people were found at all, nothing. But... everywhere in and around the village… strange patches of earth had been discovered, circular and smooth. Not only in the forest or on the road, but also in the dilapidated wooden houses. At our new neighbors' house, one of the mysterious spots had supposedly been found right in the living room floor, where the floorboards had been just cut away.
These rumors scare me. I am afraid of this village. But yesterday... I was redoing the floor in my room with my father and there... I found a notebook under the old boards. I hid it from my father, I don't know why... Someone must have left it there.
Last night... that's when I read it. I read it and now I'm incredibly afraid of this house and this village. Of the fields and the woods that surround me. The notebook apparently belonged to someone called Ilya Vasiliev. I have tried to translate what he wrote, hoping that someone here can help me find an explanation for the rumors. For this uneasy feeling that I have since I moved here...
***********
I am fine. I want that to be clear from the beginning. My story is strange and in huge parts troubling, but I am still in the best state of mental health.
I am fine!
My story begins seven months ago, in December 1979, when deep winter was upon our village. We were preparing for Christmas, the first Christmas to be celebrated publicly throughout the village, after years of having to practice our faith in secret because the Soviet government did not allow religions. Only in the last few years did the Reds' view loosen and they allowed small islands of faith. One of them was my village, which finally dared to celebrate and praise the Lord.
I have been a believer all twenty years of my life, an exemplary Christian, just like my parents. Faith had kept our family line alive in times of terror and misery. Death had always been close to us, as the fields where most of the population of our village had worked for generations had once brought the end of hundreds of people. Many years ago, on those fields, atrocities had occurred that had finally given them their present name: The Fields of Death.
I myself had not been born back then, not by a long shot, but my grandparents had spent their childhood there, a childhood full of hunger and depravity. My grandfather Fomenko often told me and my sister the stories he had experienced and how faith had saved everyone. There had been a long, cold winter and the grain had been confiscated by the government to be taken to the cities for distribution. After all, the grain belonged to all the people, not just those on the farms who planted it, tended to it, and harvested it. And so, the only food of that time left my grandfather's village and never came back. Some of his neighbors had once tried to hold back some grain, to hide some sacks, but when they were caught, a hail of bullets determined their fate. People lived in fear, not daring to stop working, not daring to keep for themselves the food that was destined for the common good. In those days, horrors happened in my village that I cannot truly picture today, not even when I hear my grandfather's usually clear voice begin to tremble. When I see in his eyes that he would rather forget, in order to experience a peaceful sleep once again… someday.
He told us about those horrors to warn us of how quickly life can plunge from safety into infinite terror. Winter had reigned. The grain was being hauled away. They still shot all those who tried to keep back pieces of it, be it a sack or some husks that had fallen from a cart. In time, hunger began to drive people in our village insane. Parents locked up their children so they wouldn't be taken by neighbors to feed their hunger. Friends turned their backs on each other and killed each other in fights for the last livestock that was still breathing. The streets reeked of decay and death, of misery and suffering. One day, my grandfather told us, he had hidden in the back room of his house while his parents dragged themselves, emaciated, to the fields to pick the last scraps of grain from the furrows with their dirty, half-frozen fingers. He had come across a book there, a book that had saved his life.
The word of God. An old Bible.
My grandfather had learned to read at an early age, one of the sad advantages of living in the Soviet Union.
It was in the room I now live in that Grandfather Fomenko had found the dusty book. Actually, he had been looking for something to eat, the days before he had found some sawdust. But despite his hunger and the grumbling in his stomach, eating the book was out of the question. Books were sacred, and no book as sacred as this one. He had begun to read and learned about the greatness of the Lord. Of the miracles his Son had performed. And of the magic of faith. His stomach had growled, but he had ignored it. The words gave him comfort.
The next day he immersed himself in the book again, disappearing into better worlds and times, hearing wisdom and encouragement. But around noon there was a knock at the door. My grandfather emphasized each time that he had not been afraid, that he had known that the Lord would protect him, when the old neighbor gained entrance to our house armed with a cleaver. It was clear what he wanted: Meat. My grandfather told us each time about how the neighbor had looked more undead than human, stinking and with sunken eyes, smelling like death from his mouth, the cleaver trembling in his hand.
"I'm sorry, boy," was all the man could get out.
My grandfather tried to mimic this poor man’s voice at the end of his wits, to express his pain through words so that we understood that poor fellow a little.
The Lord's words had given courage to my grandfather in his most terrible moments. He had stood up and firmly said:
"Away with you, the Lord protects the inhabitants of this house!"
But the intruder did not care, coming closer. And so, my grandfather again sought comfort and prayed. He prayed for mercy and peace and for his life. He would serve the Lord for the rest of his days. Trust Him blindly.
Suddenly, like a gruesome miracle, the famished intruder let out an inhuman groan and collapsed, lifeless and debilitated. There had been no hunger for my grandfather and his family for a week after that. My grandfather had been praying to the Lord since that day, thanking Him for His mercy. The story spread around the village and out of desperation or hope, in the next few days everyone secretly knelt in front of small wooden crosses they had made themselves and prayed to the Lord. A week later, like a miracle, the long-awaited delivery of grain arrived, along with spring. There had not been another bad time since then.
These events are the reason for the faith in our village... and our family. The psalm my grandfather had prayed as the hungry neighbor attacked had become the guiding psalm of our faith. All these years we had not been able to celebrate Christmas with the other families, but since the restrictions on faith communities had been relaxed, we had all finally decided to celebrate the holy festival in the village square. And so, we started the preparations.
There, in those evening hours, my part of the story begins. I and my younger sister Zarina, together with other youths and young adults, were fetching wood for the fire that was to burn in the center of our village. So, we went out into the night, dressed with thick pelts, to fetch logs from the edge of the fields that some men had prepared.
My breath could be seen as an icy breeze in the dawning darkness and I was already looking forward to dancing around the fire with everyone later, drinking good drinks and eating sumptuously. I was glad that we didn't have to walk across the fields themselves, but could stroll along their edge to get the logs.
You can feel death when it has hit a place. I was glad that I didn't have to work the fields myself, and had learned the carpentry trade. Therefore, I was spared from having to wander around there every day, among the echoes of past atrocities and sadness.
We were all in good spirits, strolling over the muddy ground, when all at once Zarina pointed up and into the clear night sky.
"Look, an angel is descending!" she exclaimed excitedly.
We all looked to where her outstretched hand pointed. A round light glowed in the night sky, glaring yellowish and shining strangely cold.
"It's singing! At Christmas! The Lord puts our feast under his sign!" Zarina cried.
We stopped and listened into the silence of the night. At first, I could hear nothing, at first, everything remained quiet, and only the distant beating of axes and the rustling of the wind in the treetops were audible.
But then, there in the wind, I could hear it, briefly but clearly. It was a kind of melodic whisper, joyful, yet also strange and otherworldly. It was heard only very briefly, and soon died away as the glow flew out of sight and disappeared somewhere far away.
"Let's go find the angel! Let's..." Zarina cried, continuing excitedly, but I interrupted her.
"We have to get the wood. We can report back to the village later, if it hasn't already been noticed there too," I said.
"You heard the singing! Surely that was an angel. Shall we leave it there? It may have gotten hurt, it must have hit something!" Sasha murmured.
Sasha was my oldest friend and one of the boys who worked on the fields. He had always been very caring and had always tried to help where he could. His parents were long dead and the old lady who had raised him was no longer around, either. So, he struggled along, working the fields, but the rest of us looked out for him.
"Shouldn't we go and look for it, Ilya?", Sasha continued to urge me anxiously.
We thought about it for a long time but decided to leave the decision to the others in the village. Trusting the Lord to guide our actions, we quickly moved on in the direction of the woodcutters to complete our task.
We were not the only ones who had seen the glow. When we returned to the village square loaded with logs, everyone was in great excitement and full of joy that the Lord had sent us this sign of His greatness. Not everyone agreed whether it was an angel or a return of the poinsettia that had been witnessed, but everyone was sure that the Lord had sent us encouragement. So, we celebrated our first Christmas full of joy and pleasure, with good food, dancing and singing, full of happiness and under the protection of the Almighty Lord. I will always think back to those days, always keep in my heart how I glimpsed a part of the Lord in the sky.
We all talked about the event and even the older people were fascinated and inspired. Even my grandfather and the others who had witnessed the worst death and misery in the world seemed to slowly find a spiritual peace they would never have dreamed of otherwise. They were happy and strengthened in their faith. However, we were not sure if it had really been an angel who had come down and so we hesitated to go and look for the creature of God.
But in the night, after the light had shone in the sky, I was awakened by Zarina crying in her sleep. I straightened up and slowly paced over to her bed, where in the semi-darkness she began to squirm, shaken by spasms.
"No, no, no..." she moaned painfully.
I began to shake her to wake her up. Zarina did not respond to me. Her face was like a distorted mask hiding something bad underneath. Her breathing became shallow, and she began to whimper. I was terrified and began to pray. The Lord had to save her, He just had to save her!
Zarina twitched more and more, started coughing and whimpering louder and louder. Slowly, the rest of the family woke up and my parents and grandfather huddled tightly around her, praying for her to open her eyes.
"Please, don't take our child! She has only been in your world for fourteen years..." my father cried, as panicked and desperate as I had ever seen before.
His thick, black mustache trembled with fear.
Then, abruptly, Zarina stopped convulsing.
For a terrible moment she just lay there, her hair disheveled, her face pale in the glow of the candle my mother held over her.
"Mom, Dad, Ilya, Grandpa... what's wrong?" she suddenly asked sleepily.
For a moment it was as if nothing had happened, as if I hadn't just seen my sister almost die, but then she began to cry.
"What's wrong, dear?" my father asked, just as pale in the face as Zarina.
It took a while before she found some calm and was able to talk to us.
Finally, she croaked:
"I saw the angel. I was with him."
A revelation? Had the Lord touched my sister?
We all said another prayer and finally, filled with awe, I asked:
"Where did you see the angel? Is it here? With us?"
She looked at me briefly, seemed to hesitate for a little moment, and then reported:
"I was with it… in a dream. It was in a white village, a village made of angel dust. I saw it. It didn't have wings and that's why at first I wasn't sure if it was an angel. However, soon it spoke to me."
"What did it say, Zarina?", I asked tensely.
"It said it was not God, but 'the Witness'. It sounded like a man and a woman and a child and a baby and... It felt peaceful. Calm and carefree. Then I woke up."
"An angel. Angels are the witnesses of God, that's how it must be!" my father said enthusiastically.
Suddenly, everyone seemed to be talking at once.
No one knew what Zarina's words meant, but we were sure that they contained something incomprehensible that we, as ordinary people, could not understand. But everyone was delighted. Everyone was caught in a beautiful dream.
The next day, the adults sat together in the large barn near the edge of the village, which was used for community events. Most of them found seats on the lined up wooden benches and the rest stood crowded against the old walls, some of which were already rotten. Dimitri, probably the closest thing to a mayor, sat at a heavy pine table at the end of the room, staring at the crowd, while my parents and Zarina sat on old chairs in front of him. Tensely, the crowd looked at them, waiting for someone to say something. Finally, Dimitri cleared his throat thoughtfully.
"You... all saw or heard about the falling star. It was brighter than the others that keep crossing our sky and much more... melodic. Some even heard the singing. Whoever still doubted that the Lord sent us his messenger... doubts are now useless. Zarina has received a vision. She has seen how the angel, who was sent by God, walked on our earth, and visited a village and consecrated it with its grace. She has seen the angel marching to spread holiness in these lands..."
"Are we sure?"
Mary, the dressmaker, had stood up. She was still young, my age and Sasha's, and she always wore her blond hair carefully braided, her dresses self-made, blood red and flashy, with silver embroidery. As always, she wore makeup - a luxury not many could afford. In other places she would have been considered a lady, but she was also a skeptical person, and I had not liked her very much since childhood, because she often made insinuations that seemed to go against the Lord. Also, she had never played with us outside and had always thought of herself as someone… better. I was shocked that she now so obviously doubted the Lord's actions.
"Mary. Zarina has seen a vision. The Lord spoke to her through her dreams! An angel has joined us. How can you deny it?" my father asked coldly.
"I'm not denying it, I'm just saying, what if there is something dark that the angel was sent to fight? What if it is going into battle against some unknown evil? The angel may be spreading sanctities, but we have no idea if it is trying to redeem us or defend us..."
"It said it was a witness of God," I noted.
"That's what Zarina said when she woke up."
"Then it is benevolent to us! We must find it!" someone shouted from one of the back rows.
An excited murmur began to spread through the room.
"Silence!" Dimitri thundered.
His face looked hard but determined.
"We have to get to it! If it is a message from heaven that the angel wants to bring us, we must hear it! How many can we spare? Who would even want to voluntarily leave the village? We don't know how long the journey will be, and you yourselves know how dangerous this area can be..."
A loud commotion broke out. Everyone shouted at once and volunteered. I also jumped up and loudly offered to go out to look for it.
The angel. The Witness of the Lord.
I imagined meeting it in a clearing, under a full moon. Hearing its bright voice, gaze in awe at its graceful form, and fall to my knees in prayer before it.
"SILENCE!" Dimitri shouted.
"You can't all go. The kids wouldn't make it in the deadly cold out there. Let seven go. Seven is the Lord's number, there must be seven! Seven workers from the fields! We can't spare any more!"
"You can't be serious!" I cried out.
Cold anger boiled up inside me.
"I want to go, too. We all want to. You can't just stand there and make a decision like that!"
Others joined in.
"SILENCE," Alexeij now thundered, the master blacksmith.
"We need you! Daniil, Ilya, Nikita, you have a job to do! We can't get by without you! You can't go, be reasonable!"
"But if the Lord wills it, he will make sure that everything here will work out. That nothing will happen!", I tried to argue, still boiling with anger.
"No. Winter is tugging at our huts, we need you," my father said slowly.
"So do the others. Without you, it's going to be tight. The fields lie under the snow, but everything else will be weakened by time and storms. We can only spare the field hands. Besides, they're the ones most likely to withstand the cold and the wilderness; after all, they're constantly out on the Fields of Death, toiling in the wind and rain. They'll all make the trip!"
I tried to change his mind, and several came to my aid, all those who were also forced to stay.
"You can manage without a dressmaker! I want to go too!" Mary cried defiantly, her cheeks red with anger, her nose wrinkled.
This young woman really believed she deserved the sight of the angel! She really believed her hypocrisies would deceive the Lord, despite her obvious doubts about His divinity!
Others also complained, young and old, many who didn't deserve to go and even those who did.
But it didn't help.
Dimitri was in charge. Everyone knew that. If we started to contradict him, our village would soon end up in chaos. And deep down I knew that I had to stay. That I had to take care of my sister, who would not survive a trip in the snow. That I had to repair the huts that the storms would eat away at.
Sasha was a field worker, he was allowed to go. Sasha and Sofia, Anatoly and old Igor, Ivan and Yulia and Mikhail. When the decision was made, a decision many of us accepted only with heavy hearts and which brought out deep envy in several faces, some of the chosen ones began to cry. They were happy, fulfilled... satisfied. They would see the messenger of the Lord, hear its melodious voice, sing its hymns.
Why wasn't I allowed to go? Why was the world so unfair? I had always believed in the Lord, prayed to Him, been subject to Him and lived according to His will. Why hadn't he chosen me to see his messenger? I had been so proud back when I had been allowed to learn the carpenter's trade and thus had not to go to the Fields of Death to toil there. At that time, I had felt like someone better when I saw Sasha and Sofia setting out early in the morning with all the other workers, with their old-fashioned plows and thick, shabby clothes.
Was this the punishment for my arrogance?
The Lord knew everything. He had seen what repulsive thoughts I had had, how superior I had felt to the others. Perhaps it was my punishment that I was not allowed to go. Perhaps the Lord was no longer favorable to me and I would have to prove myself to Him.
The next day, the seven set out north. They were seen off with singing and dancing; they were the center of the village’s attention. Envy threatened to drown me.
Why not me? Why wasn't I allowed to go? Why did I have to stay here?
And I knew: it was because of these thoughts. I wasn't pure enough. I had to get better, work on myself.
As the others disappeared from sight, as the small group seemed to be swallowed up by a patch of forest between distant trees, an icy chill ran down my spine.
What if they really did encounter evil? What if Mary had been right?
I prayed to the Lord that they would return home safely: Even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
He would bring them home safely, our pilgrims. I did not begrudge them their happiness. I was not a selfish person, was not complacent like Mary or some others in the village. I lived by the word of the Lord and I would not begrudge them.
They would all return home safely.
I continued to stare into the distance for a long time as my suppressed envy sought to consume me. But I was winning.
For darkness is as light to you.
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Even though the days and weeks passed, I never forgot to think of all those who had set out to witness the glory of the Lord. The cold winter had passed and frost and cold left the land, so that soon we could begin to prepare the fields for sowing. Since the sighting of the angel had caused us to let some of the farm workers leave, and they stayed away longer than we had expected, I had to join others in helping to plow the Fields of Death. The work was exhausting and made me physically very tired, since I still had to work in the carpenter's shop as well. We could not afford tractors, so we still had to resort to older tools. So, it happened that one day I was driving one of the hand plows through the dirty ground and was lost in my thoughts and full of sweat.
I was quite far away from the village, as the nearby surroundings had been worked shortly after the beginning of the thaw. The fields were extensive, partly reaching further than the eye could see. Only in one direction the dense forest extended, which introduced the beginning of a dark hilly landscape, that finally merged northward into high, alien mountains, whose white peaks rose high into the sky and, like once the tower of Babel, blasphemously tried to penetrate the heavens. But next to these distant giants there was only the plain, the vast plain that had to be tilled.
I hated the field work. And I hated the fields.
Every time I even thought about this piece of hell that had become reality long ago, my stomach turned. All the events that clung to this dark place, all the human lives and suffering that had sown the ground with death and blood here many years ago....
It was even worse when you stood in the fields yourself, truly being there on your own. It was as if I could smell it in the air, the rot of the starving and the hot blood that had watered the soil. It was as if I could still hear in the air the cries and wailing of the people who had met their end here, who had pleaded for their lives and the lives of their children and friends. It was as if I could see them in the early morning fog banks that lay on the Fields of Death, the shadows of people past, crawling and cowering, weak and starved. I had to pull myself together and look away, into the forest. A place does not forget, a place always remembers the days gone by and the cries that had been.
The plow pulled through the ground, ripping a furrow behind it. It was almost a bit comforting to imagine I was gutting this place of horror with my labor, inflicting deep wounds. Hypnotized, I stared down over and over again, watching the ground swirl to one side, smelling the fresh earth being pushed to the surface. But never could I escape my terrible feelings and the forebodings, never could I forget what kind of place I was at.
The few times I looked to the forest beside me, my thoughts wandered enviously to all those who had set out to find the angel. Had they reached it yet? Had they already learned from it what needed to be done for God's power on earth to be strengthened so that false prophets and promises could be swept away? How to drown the selfishness of the state? What needed to be done to serve the Lord?
Oh, how I would have loved to be there! How I would have loved to go with them, but I also understood the decision not to send everyone, and I understood my family's objections. I was needed here. I could serve the Lord here by tilling the fields and taking care of the soil and the sowing. I had to care for my sister.
I had already made several furrows when noon came. The sun was almost not visible, just a murky spot behind the clouds, and the fog had not lifted either. The world looked pale and apathetic. But amongst all the desolation I could suddenly hear something, something that seemed to come out of the forest.
It was at first just like a rustling in the wind that sounded a bit too regular, such that it triggered a natural uneasiness in me. I looked into the forest, but could hardly make out anything through the dense plants and the still lingering fog. That is why it was left to my own thoughts to imagine what was there, what was producing this strange noise.
I could not remember any animal that made similar sounds, was at a loss.
Suddenly, a bang echoed through the forest, accompanied by a panicked scream that broke inhumanly from the trees and spread across the fields.
Then, something new joined the sounds in the air.
The trees and bushes rustled, almost seemed to be torn apart.
Something was running through the forest, something seemed to be... coming right at me.
Was it perhaps a startled bear, an elk, or a wild boar?
Had one of the hunters from the village accidentally startled an animal, scared it in the wrong direction and now wanted to warn us with their cry? But then, why this panicked sound...?
I paused, took my hands off the rusty handles of the plow, and turned toward the forest. Still, I could only see fog, I could only hear rustling, but slowly I could also make out grunts and groans coming to me from the fog. It sounded heavy and panic-stricken.
Was I in danger? I began to pray to the Lord and ask him for assistance. I was not a fighter and so I had to hope that nothing would reach me from the depths between the trees that could easily tear me apart.
Even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
My baptismal motto gave me courage. The Lord saw me, even in my darkness, and would be with me.
For darkness is as light to you.
Then, someone burst out of the bushes and the fog and rushed toward me.
It was Sasha.
I almost didn't recognize him. His skin was pale, almost snow-white. His black hair stuck to his sweaty face. His pants and jacket were almost completely torn, so I could see his dirty shirt and his cut and bruised legs through the holes. There were also some small cuts on his face that worried me. Sasha's eyes twitched searchingly, panicked, and in his hand, he held the rifle that he had taken with him when he had once set out. Apparently, he had run through brush and thorns, had gotten scrapes and wounds from stones and branches.
When he saw me and looked at me with his big, panic-filled eyes, I became horridly afraid.
It was as if… behind his eyes there was no Sasha anymore, but only an animal. As if instinct had taken over his thoughts when an unnamable terror had entered his world. An animal inside him, which had enabled him to escape from... something.
Sasha staggered out of the forest, it was almost as if all strength left him now that he was back home. The rifle fell from his hand and dug into the mud beneath his feet. He limped slowly toward me, not taking his eyes off me. Then, suddenly, he wheeled around and looked back into the forest and the mist.
Only for a moment.
Again, he let out a shrill scream and sprinted the last few meters. When I looked into the forest myself, I saw nothing, only the fog.
But, didn't I feel a presence there, in the bushes? Between the trees?
I didn't see anything.
Sasha had reached me and collapsed. I quickly knelt down next to him and called for help. But the other field workers had already rushed over, obviously attracted by the rifle shot. I was in a trance, seeing only Sasha lying there, supporting his head. His eyes were still twitching around and despite my proximity he didn't seem to recognize me. He looked at me, confused.
"Sasha, what happened?", I asked, feeling his forehead.
Despite his paleness, he was uncomfortably hot.
A fever raged in his body. Who knew how long he had been running around there among the trees, his protective, warming jacket torn? With wounds that had not been tended and some of which were still bleeding?
Then another horrible thought occurred to me.
"Sasha, where are the others? Sasha, where are the others?"
This question apparently brought back some clarity that his gaze had not possessed before.
"They... they took them. Took all of them... All of them. All our brothers, all our sisters... all of them," he gurgled.
*********
So, this is the first part of what I found. I will hurry to translate the rest! But I will definitely stay out of the woods for now... They are still as creepy as described by Ilya in this document and fog ist still around every morning... Also, I don't know what to make of Ilya himself as well, is he just a religious nut and that is the explanation? I just don't know...

Hi, I've never posted before but dont now what else to do, I'm feeling very lost and alone and have for years, I guess part of me always blamed the mother of my kids for how lonely felt, but really it wasn't directly her fault yes she could of been more attentive but so could I, we grew apart and and found ourselves arguing far too much and neither of us wanted it to affect our kids, we've been split for a year and a half (or a bit more) and still go round hers everyday to see the kids and spend weekends with her and them, we want to be friends and progress co parenting with us being the good mates we were before we got together but everyday I miss her more and more and she's recently met up with a guy and she seems pretty smitten and honestly it breaks my heart, want that too and have been looking for that but no-one really has hit the mark and in my heart I've been holding out hope that one day it would be her. AIl want is to cuddle her and my kids and feel like a family again but my heart is so broken and my soul has been crushed, have ADHD and looking back there's a huge chunk of our problems that can directly attribute to ADHD and it makes me so made because I'm still untreated and keep asking myself ifl had been treated sooner would things turn out differently? hate my brain and hate me and would give anything to turn back the time and get treatment and be the man she deserves but know that's not an option and it makes it really hard to find a reason to carry on when some guy can come in and look after my family better than l ever could. She's the only person feel have in my life, have no friends or anything, and it makes it hard because she's been comforting me recently and it shouldn't be her job to do that because it's only making it harder on her, she likes this guy and don't want guilt being the reason she doesn't go for it, I love her with everything I am and to watch her be miserable and lonely would crush me but seeing her with someone else crushes me too, it's been a long time coming and can't say don't deserve this but fuck I really wish had one more chance, just one do over, because know can be better, know can do more, it just hurts that I realised everything too little too late

This post is a compilations of tips I saw on BoardGameGeek, Jack Reda's Youtube videos, and personal experience. Feel free to comment your own tips so I can add them to the list. I only cover the base game and first extension (in advance game mode), but I might add the other factions later if I ever have the opportunity to play with them. English is not my native language, so pardon my French if I made mistakes.

General tips

Shipping, resurrecting, fighting is expensive (unless you play Fremen). Dune is a game of opportunity, you have to be ready to attack at the right moment, and recognize these moments (from experience, and with the help of this tips).Each faction advantage is very strong, so you should abuse them at every moments. Choose your traitor wisely : Picking the strongest might give you more spice, but player are usually less likely to use them all the time because of the traitor risk. But bluffing/double bluffing your traitor choice will also depend on the table, who are the players, how often do you play with them... Avoid keeping an Atreides traitor, because once the KH is out, it might be a dead card. Choose your alliance by looking at the board for a quick win if you see that you might be 1 stronghold away from victory with someone. Or choose your alliance by combining fancy powers for the long game. Also look at who owns what tech tokens, you might want to avoid allying with someone who has some when you have some as well.

FREMEN TIPS

You are like the Zergs is SC2, you come with a massive number of forces, and even if someone destroy you, you can still come back. Often underestimated, use the overconfidence of the players to your advantage. You might lose lots of battle due to the lack of combat abilities, but you can win the war (the game) with your ability to recover very easily. In order to make your enemies commit to you to lose resources, you must be annoying, all over the place (thanks to your 2-territory movement).
SETUP: Start with 5 in Sietch Tabyr (because it's a stronghold, you should already occupy it) and 5 in False Wall South (because you can't really deploy in this side of the map so it's always good to have some options here). No need to split more.If you play with tech token, then you also have an interesting thing to do after the first storm: Bribe someone for 2 or 3 spice. No matter what it is for, you will get this right after the CHOAM Charity. Try buying a card at the beginning, before everyone gets too much spice, and after some have spent their starting spice. You don't need to keep any spice to deploy or fight so all your spice can be spent into treachery cards.
INCOME: Harvest Spice ! This is your best source of income. And with spice harvest comes the worm riding possibility. This is where the Atreides come to be helpful. If you manage to get a deal with the Atreides player, in order to know when he sees his first sand worm in the spice deck, you will have multiple information at once: As long at the Atreides does not see any sandworm : only the second spice blow per turn can have a worm, so focusing on this location give you more chances to get to ride it. Plus, if a sand worm does appear, you can move your troops to the location of the first spice blow of the turn. This mechanic makes you focus on only half of the spice blow, so you might still want to harvest both spice blows per turn if you can. You can also pretend to make a deal with another faction to let them the first spice blow in exchange for bribes. But in the end, if you control the spice blows, and don't let anything to Atreides/Harkonnen/Ixians, you have the advantage and weaken them. Last way to gain spice if by selling information. Same as everyone, you could know safe leaders, of cards in hand, but you also have the storm deck, and that can be valuable especially to Harkonnen and Atreides who might also be trying to harvest spice. Once your hand is full, you don't need spice anymore, so use it to bribe players.
COMBAT: You can bring large amount of troops, and make them fight full strength, at no cost, so you are a force of nature. You also have the strongest leaders if they are not killed in battle. Keep your best ones for when you have defense cards, but also be careful: Stilgard is 7 spice to whoever have the Traitor card corresponding, he is almost never put aside if a player draws him.
ALLIANCE: Gain spice harvesting control with Atreides, or Ixians (More secure income, and less obstacles for spice harvesting, good card knowledge that can be leveraged in combat).Gain the ability to become a never-ending wave of troops with Emperor or Bene Tleilaxu revival bonus (Better income, can heal lots of troops). Gain combat supremacy with Harkonnens traitors or card knowledge, or with Bene Gesserit's voice (low income, but still great in combat). Or play the long game and prevent others from winning with the guild (good income, but not very beneficial for the Fremen)
BONUS: Using a Karama card to bring a worm to an enemy army is devastating. Using it to reposition your own army could also be worth it, but be careful not to go too far or you won't be able to reinforce. You can also use your ability to only lose half your troops in storm to cancel a victory when a stronghold is inside the storm. Once the game is at turn 9-10, start to think about your alternative win condition, with the help of you ally.

ATREIDES TIPS

You are the scholars, the Littlefinger of this game. If you keep your notes clean, you won't even need prescience in combat, because at some point, you can know the entire hand of every player. Your factions advantages are great, but not always easy to take advantage of. Atreides are social, you can manage good relations with players by selling information, but don't give too much or your advantages will be worthless.
SETUP: Start by finding both kinds of attack and/ or defense, buy the right treachery cards in order to better use your prescience. If you have both options for killing a leader or protection yours, you can start battling. Going for spice in the first turn is great for either... getting spice or battling others for it and losing the 7 troops needed for KH.
INCOME: Sell Intel! People going for spice blows want to know about the next, people buying treachery cards want to know what they are bidding on, people going into battle want to know if they have a safe leader. You also want to harvest spice, and win battle, but you have economic faction in the game so they are your main market for selling intel. You can make deals with some players where I wink to them if a specific card they ask is on the auction, but make sure that the bribe is worded in a way you can keep information from them, or high enough so you can have a steady income.
COMBAT: Once you have both kind or weapon or defense, you can kill enemy leader or protect your own. But if you keep track of what cards each opponent have, you might know that some players don't have both kind, and that using prescience to see their weapon/defense is useless. This is when you can ask for the numbers they put in combat and minimize the troops you will lose. You can also step up in other players combat before they reveal to sell valuable information about the opponent hand of treachery cards, and even make the opponent pay you more to not give the information. Knowledge is power.
ALLIANCE: Gain the ultimate combat power with Bene Gesserit (Voice + hand knowledge of you opponent is the most powerful ability in the game), but I would advise not to make this alliance, not because it's not strong, it's obviously the strongest, but because it's less fun for opponents as every battle you play take away their control on the game, and this can be VERY frustrating for the other 4 players. Gain the perfect card knowledge with Harkonnen or Ixian (They will know what cards are not seen by your prescience).Gain the market control with Emperor (buying all the good cards, leaving the others to the poor ones).Gain the spice blow monopoly with the Fremen (and be sure to let none to other factions).Other alliances might not be very beneficial to you.
BONUS: Use Karama cards for disabling other powers, because your cunning effect is not that useful once you have a clean note on hand knowledge. I would mostly keep a Karama to instantly buy a powerful card I can't afford since I know I won't waste it. Because the bidding phase is your moment to shine, you can influence other players to spend more or less on a card, by bidding yourself. The player before you just bid 4 and you know it's worthless, bet 6 so the next think it's worth it. You see a great card and bid second, pass this time and hope the bid make another round to make people think this is worthless. Making players spend spice on bad cards is how you get the good ones.

HARKONNEN TIPS

You are the mean antagonist, the space Orcs, and your abilities make players afraid to lose a battle against you, or even fight you at all. You might not have a lot of spice income, but once you can spend a little on treachery cards, you become a killing machine. This faction is train that is harder and harder to stop once it gains speed, but very hard to put back on rails if stopped once (I find this faction to be the most unforgiving)
SETUP: Stay in Carthag with your troops until you have enough resources to fight. If a spice blow is near, you can take a small number of troops to harvest it. But if you leave it with too little troops, you might lose it. Buy 1 or 2 cards on the first auction, so your hand is almost full, you will have options, or at least make people afraid of fighting you.
INCOME: Win battles! If you win battle, you harvest the spice of the killed leaders. And if you don't capture a leader, you send it to the tanks for 2 spice. So winning your battles is your way of gaining a lot of spice, as well as suppressing lot of enemy leaders. You don't even need spice to get your leaders back if you capture some of your enemies. You can also look for spice blows, but splitting your army is risky because without army to win battles, you lack income, and without income, you can't heal/deploy your army back. Every victory is a heavy loss for your opponent if you capture a good leader, so you can also receive bribes to not fight them. You can also sell information on your traitor hand, but that might make you lose power.
COMBAT: You don't have combat ability, so you must bring lot of forces in order to be sure to win. Try attacking players that played before you in storm order so they can't run away from you. Focus on faction with traitors you own, for an easy fight without sacrifice. You don't choose your traitors, but you can bluff enemy players on how to make them pick the leader you want. If you have a low strength traitor, harass this player to make him think you have a traitor of him, so he might avoid using his high strength leaders. If you have a high strength traitor, you can bait this player into attacking you, but be careful to have enough forces to make him use the high strength leader in question. Sometimes you might not call traitor (if you win anyway, if you lose but only 1-2 troops) in order to make the player think his leader is safe against you... but you might not get the chance to call it again, so be careful with this bluff.If you have the Cheap Hero traitor card : Ally with Bene Gesserit for some funny wins (since BG can use the voice to force your opponent or their opponent to use a Cheap Hero card)Without using traitors, you still have lot of treachery cards to assassinate and protect. And Atreides can't really sell info on them to help your opponent.
ALLIANCE: Gain all the money you need to fight with Emperor and Guild (Getting Treachery cards even when you got destroyed can really help you get back on track, it's your golden parachute).Gain the ultimate card knowledge with Atreides, but an even stronger alliance is with Ixians and their ability to setup the best card on the top of the deck for you to get when you buy any card. Gain the Traitor monopole with Bene Theilaxu (up to 7 leaders out of 20, that's a third of you opponents leaders that they "can't" play, this is very frightening), and it's also an economic faction that will help you. Gain some help in battle with the Bene Gesserit, but unless you have the Cheap Hero traitor card, it's not the best choice, you will lack income. On the other hand, having the voice in battle is always helpful. I don't see any reason to have an alliance with Fremen.
BONUS: You can use a Karama card to force a treachery card exchange, this can be used in 2 ways : Exchange worthless cards with your Bene Gesserit ally, or exchange your worthless cards with an enemy (except BG) that is not in an alliance with Atreides, in order to mess with the note of the later. Once the Atreides player has 2-3 unknown cards (in addition to your bonus cards), your hand is a mystery to him, and you can really surprise him. You can also simply use a Karama to steal a Poison blade or a Shield Snooper from another player in order to win even more combats. And if using a Karama card gets you a free card during bidding for someone, for you this is 2 free cards, so it’s worth it.

EMPEROR TIPS

You are not the enemy people see in battle, but you are the puppet master pulling the strings. Your lack of fancy abilities is why you pay players to do the dirty job for you. Use your large amount of spice to bribe the game in your favor in order to strike when you really need to. Patience is your second-best ally, the first one being money.
SETUP: Don't do much at the beginning. You don't have to be on the planet, you don't have to combat early, you can take Habbanya Ridge Sietch if you like but don't need at first.
INCOME: Make the bids go high ! Your income may be passive, you should be active during the bidding phase. Try to never have your hand full, in order to be able to bid, and raise the price a little higher. If only one player can bid, it's only 1 spice for you, so be the other buyer that tries to steal that card. And if you pay the Atreides to know the card, it's even more realistic if you try to have the card and it will make the opponent want it even more. Remember that the spice you spend is even more spice you don't get. Once in an alliance, you can have the help of your ally to influence the auction. And if your hand is full but have a cards can be used instantly (Ghola, Truthtrance,...) you can use it to free a hand slot and manipulate the auction again. Keeping the other players poor is your way to victory.
COMBAT: You have the advantage in battle, your Sardaukars, and your spice. You can "doomstack" on a territory and be sure to win even with your leader killed (and if you dial high enough to win like that, don't put your best leader in battle, it would be a shame to lose it for nothing). But your best option is to make players kill each other’s by bribing them, and then get the strongholds once their remaining forces are low. Just because you are rich, does not mean you should waste your spice.One last thing people often forget about spacing guild, is that you can ship from Dune to Dune, this can be an opportunity for you to get 2 stronghold with 10 forces each on 1 turn, and at the end of every players round, ship 9 of them to a 3rd stronghold for the win on an easy target.
ALLIANCE: Gain the fancy power you don't have with any faction that is not economic and allow them to shine with your spice. Or you could even ally with another economic faction and crush the other players with your wealth, but that's not always the best strategy. In general, players will ask YOU for an alliance so pick the one you prefeis in best position for the win.
BONUS: You can use a Karama card to get troops back (or a Leader but that's less valuable), that is only useful if you failed something (or got a traitor card played on you) and need to get back on your feet, but it's even more impactful if you prevent a fancy combat ability to bring others to your level and beat them with spice.

GUILD TIPS

You are the French policeman of this game, you maintain order and prevent players from taking too much power, but if you like you can shoot their eyes and explode their hands to take the win for yourself. Your control of the turn order makes you able to slow down some players that might win. This is a very valuable power but also your only (besides, of course, being rich).
SETUP: With only 5 forces in Tuek’s Sietch, you might want to reinforce, but you can also wait and see if someone tries to attack you. With only 5 spice at the beginning, it can be difficult to have a lot of treachery cards, but after turn 1 you might have more to spend.
INCOME: Make them fight! You don't have a lot of control over your main source of income, since if you attack someone to make him ship reinforcement, you also lose spice in the process, you can't really take advantage or your own combats with such a low revival rate. But influencing players into fighting each other’s (by bribing or just convincing them) is great for busyness.
COMBAT: You have the lowest strength leaders, you must "doomstack" if you want to win, by bringing lot of forces and paying them with your spice, so even if you don't kill the opponent leader you still win. On the bright side, your leaders are so bad and you are so underestimated that they might never be a traitor (except if Harkonnen drew some, or if they are facedancers).
ALLIANCE: Gain the fancy power you don't have with any faction that is not economic and allow them to shine with your spice. Or you could even ally with another economic faction and crush the other players with your wealth, but that's not always the best strategy (unless maybe Bene Tleilaxu, that can help other players to get back more troops to ship and benefit you both, but no need to be allies for him to do so). In general, player will ask YOU for an alliance so pick the one you prefeis in best position for the win. One alliance is particularly great in order to win with your alternative victory condition: Bene Gesserit. You can use your ability to go first to put 1 troop against someone in a stronghold, so no one else can attack him, in order to "protect" him against someone that might want to win this turn. The Bene Gesserit can also do the same by flipping an advisor. Together you can hold some strongholds in stasis in order to stall until the end of turn 10.
BONUS: Your cunning effect of a Karama card is one of the best! Preventing a player from shipping this turn can turn a perfect winning plan into a waste of spice if they all in elsewhere. But like the emperor, you can prevent a fancy combat ability to bring others to your level and beat them with spice.

BENE GESSERIT TIPS

You are the ninja of this game, staying in the shadow until you want to strike, and Leto II knows you strike very hard. The hardest faction to play, and the strongest (judging by its win rate). You have lots of very fancy abilities that can really turn a game in your favor, but in beginners’ hand they might not get you anywhere. These tips are the hardest to write because there are so many things to be said about this faction, and yet not a single easy receipt for victory.
SETUP: With 1 advisor wherever you want, you might want to target a stronghold, and maybe one where there will be lot of shipping (Carthag or Arakeen for example). At turn 1, you don't really care about keeping spice for shipping or fighting, don't think about it until turn 3. You are 5+2 spice at the first round, and you want weapons and defenses to kill leaders with your voice. You begin as the 4th most fortunate player, so buying a card can be crucial in turn 1, because after some spice harvesting and battles, you might end up the poorest. And since no card is really worthless to you, you risk nothing by bidding blindly during auction.
INCOME: It's complicated! 2 spice per turn with CHOAM Charity can't be your only source, you need alternative ways of earning spice. First and most obvious, is combat, because the voice can make you 100% sure to kill the opponent leader, and if you also win, you get the spice from it. But there is also another way to use your abilities for money: You can threaten a player and expect spice for not executing the threat. For example, you can say to a player "I could flip my 5 advisors for the movement phase, and then you will have to fight me and spend a lot of spice into this combat, or you can bribe me a little less so I won't do it this turn". Or make players pay for your services, with the opposite mechanic "if you pay me 5 spice I flip this advisor to a warrior and leave the territory at the end of my turn, so the [insert a faction playing before you] cannot attack you here". This can be quite complicated to pull, but you may find a lot of creative ways to make spice out of your powers. If you manage to take Carthag or Arakeen, this also could be your solution for your lack of spice and mobility.
COMBAT: Your best field is the battlefield. If you manage to get even 1 weapon, you become a killing machine, and if you have a poison blade or a shield snooper, you are the ultimate killing machine (and don't even need Atreides to be sure to kill the opponent leader without losing yours). If you manage to remember some cards played in previous battles, you can be very creative with your voice, by making them play worthless cards in order to choose between playing a weapon or a defense, or making them play a worthless hero so you only have to protect your leader. You can also bluff (especially at the beginning of the game) to make players thing you can kill their leaders ("don't play a poison defense") when you don't even have a weapon, in order to make them play a low strength leader and have a chance to win anyway. But don't prevent an enemy from playing a type of defense, if you have a high strength traitor of your opponent, because if they know their leader is going to die, they will sacrifice a low strength one. Speaking of traitor, the cheap hero traitor card is a great pick if you have it in your starting hand, this can lead to very funny battles against armies if you manage to know who has a cheap hero treachery card. Sometimes, if you are sure to win a fight and know some cards if you opponent’s hand, you might force them to play a specific card you can counter (like a projectile weapon) in order to make them lose it.
ALLIANCE: Gain the ultimate combat power with Atreides (Voice + hand knowledge of your opponent is the most powerful ability in the game), but I would advise not to make this alliance, not because it's not strong, it's obviously the strongest, but because it's less fun for opponents as every battle you play take away their control on the game, and this can be VERY frustrating for the other 4 players. Gain the leader eraser alliance with the Harkonnen (that can remove 2 leaders per combat with the right treachery cards).The rest of the alliances might not benefit you very much, but since you have the best alliance power, player will ask YOU for an alliance so pick the one you prefeis in best position for the win.
BONUS: You have a very funny alternative victory condition, that I will try to give tips about. Ixians, Atreides, Harkonnen and Fremen can have an early win (turn 3-5) since they start with strongholds and have great combat abilities. Guilde, Emperor, Bene Thleilaxu on the other hand, may not win before turn 5. As for the rest, it's more about the players than the factions. Aim for the most experimented, and on a not too early turn. Once you set your prediction, you have two ways: 1. Wait for an alliance (that's why you don't set it too early, once in an alliance you have twice more chances of successful prediction on the faction), focus the alliance you prediction is not in, and hope the faction you predicted come out on top after your battles. For this to happen, you can influence a bit in its favor the same way the Guild can prevent a player from winning: you can protect the stronghold they own by flipping an advisor and leaving after your turn. 2. Ally with the faction you predicted (my favorite strategy, but not the easiest), and try to win normally but on your predicted turn, so you can steal the victory away from you ally and win 1v5 mouhahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahaha If you play against a Bene Gesserit player, that can be fun to ask them if the faction they are in an alliance with is part of their winning condition. If they answer yes, their ally may become paranoid if they are about to win, and if they say no, their ally might lose trust.But your prediction is not only useful to steal a victory, but also to prevent a victory with a good bluff. You see someone going for the win this turn and can’t really win one of the battle ? If it’s not the last battle, you can say “I don’t use the voice” and never say why, the player might think that’s you let him win in order to fulfill your prediction, and might throw this battle or the next one just in case.About shipping advisors, it’s better to not go all overs the board, focus only on 2-3 strongholds because if you even have 2 advisors on each, it’s already half your army that is split.Your ability to avoid combat when another faction enters a territory you are in makes you the best at keeping tech tokens, so going tech token hunting during the game can be an excellent strategy.

BENE TLEILAXU TIPS

You are spider that waits for its web to trigger, you are patience, you are scary, you are Bene Tleilaxu. Your face dancers presence makes every fight dangerous.
SETUP: Wait. You don’t need to rush anything; you can wait until you have good treachery cards. Some people try to force combat at the beginning to make enemies lose troop and start your economy, but you might lose your tech token, so I won’t advise it unless you are sure to win the combat.
INCOME: Make them fight! Same as the Guild, you win more spice if the other players fight each other’s. But you can also increase the number of troops your enemies can revive, and allow them to revive their leaders early, and you can make them pay for it. Leverage this favor for spice, or information. Your face dancers are another source of information that can be sold, these are “safe” leaders from traitors, and you can see a lot of them during the game. Keep track of them and if you see a high strength leader, you might want to keep it.
COMBAT: You can wait until a face dancer is revealed, or you can put troops yourself. Zoal is a tricky leader to use, but his simple presence in your roaster will make your enemies paranoid when fighting you. Bluff about your hand, your ability to kill your enemy leader and make them think you will play Zoal, and they might use a low strength leader against you to minimize the spice you will gain. If you manage the early leader revivals of your enemies well, they might only have good strength leader to put into battle. Since you don’t have fancy combat abilities, make your stronghold difficult to take by reinforcing them with lot of troops. You can always use them to replace another army after a face dancer reveal, if needed.
ALLIANCE: Gain the Traitor monopole with Harkonnen (up to 7 leaders out of 20, that's a third of your opponents’ leaders that they "can't" play, this is very frightening). Moreover, you can offer to early revive opponent leader that are you ally traitors for even more treacheries. An alliance with the Bene Gesserit could be good if you have the Cheap Hero Traitor card, but other than that there is not much synergy here (It’s always nice to have the voice in combat, but will you combat often ?) Or you could even ally with another economic faction and crush the other players with your wealth, but that's not always the best strategy (unless maybe the Guild, since you can help other players to get back more troops to ship and benefit you both, and the more troops you allow to be back on the planet, the longer the game last). In general, players will ask YOU for an alliance so pick the one you prefeis in best position for the win.
BONUS: You can use a Karama card to prevent a player from doing revival can be strong against the Emperor (and their alliance), but in the end it’s your source of income, and that might not change a lot.If you draw a face dancer from your faction, or the cheap hero, you will want to discard them at the mantat phase. But keep this information, it might become useful for you. Once you reveal a face dancer, this leader is in the tanks and on the next turn, you can revive it (if you have less than 5 leaders) to enjoy a safe leader on your side.

IXIANS TIPS

You are the rich kid that has all the fancy toys before everyone else in middle school. You start hard and need to focus on staying at the top before other factions get their moment to shine. You can’t take notes like the Atreides, so you must focus to remember the cards you see, and the cards played by other players, in order to take advantage of your starting card (or in case you even get in an alliance with the Atreides to complete his notes in order to know the full hand of everybody).
SETUP: Out of the 6 cards you will see, you can look for a couple of them that might be the most helpful. The poison blade and the shield-snooper are the best attack/defense of the treachery deck. But a simple projectile weapon can be as deadly if there are no shields in the other 5 cards. So even if there are no special treachery cards, you can try to maximize your efficiency in combat by keeping track of the potential defenses from your cards. And at every auction, you can put away one of the cards that might cause you trouble. Keeping this “monopoly” on what can counter you is the best way to keep your starting advantage long enough to win. A weapon “monopoly” is better than a defense “monopoly” for you. Then you place your Hidden Mobile Stronghold (IMS), away from Carthag and Arakeen so no one can ship there, steal Ornithopters and get into your IMS. The first key to keep it is to make it expensive to get into. One of your first target might be the Fremen, to steal their tech token, and since they have so little spice, they might not get a lot or treachery cards to defends themselves against you at first.
INCOME: Vacuum it hard! Your IMS is the main source of spice for your faction, but sometimes you will have to get some alternative income since you won’t always be 3 territories away from remaining spice. You could make deals with other spice harvesters, but they might not let you. Protecting your IMS is crucial to keep your spice income. This is where killing heroes come handy and having great treachery cards is a nice advantage.
COMBAT: If you get the right set of cards in the starting 6 and can put aside the right one on the first auction, your combat will be easy since you can kill enemy leader for sure (because you know that you can waste less troop in dial if you don’t have to worry about the enemy leader). You also have the Cyborg/suboid mechanic to reduce the cost of battles. To make it simple, use your cyborg only in battle, but ship 1 suboid for each cyborg you put in battle to absorb the loss. So, to fight with 8, you ship 4 cyborg and 4 suboid, pay 4 spice for the cyborg, and only lose 4 suboid if you lose. The first turn is difficult for everyone because they have so little spice to dial high, you won’t need that many cyborgs.
ALLIANCE: Gain some overwhelming cyborg revivals (3) with the Fremen faction (and together you can share the spice blows each turn in order to maintain control over spice income). Or ally with the emperor to make him pay to resurrect 3 more cyborgs, or the Tleilax to only pay them half price.Gain the perfect card knowledge with Atreides, or on the opposite, because the perfect counter to Atreides by allying with the Harkonnens (giving them the best cards on the top of the deck).Gain a better advantage in battle with Bene Gesserit, if you don’t fear being broke. Gain some economic support from the Guild, but you might both be better with someone else.
BONUS: You can use a Karama card to move your IMS, but it's even more impactful if you prevent a fancy combat ability to bring others to your level and beat them with better treachery cards.

I've been at this job a month and a half. I trained some cashiering at the start of it and then moved on to other things, but now they're trying to teach me again even though family members usually do it. In the meantime, I've been reminded that the cost of my labor sometimes exceeds the profit from our goods and it's left a bad taste in my mouth.
I hate cashiering. It was my first job (10+ years ago) and I got in trouble for counting money wrong a couple of times and it's stuck with me. It's not my strong suit. And I don't want to be liable for losing this company more so than I apparently already am.
Is this reasonable cause to request not learning cashiering at this temporary job? Ultimately being a liability for losing the company money. Or am I just being petty?

So fucking tired of these guys coming in and invalidating pretty much every rant a student has on here lol. Like Jesus Christ, don’t you guys have a job to go be terrible at?
No wonder there’s so many shitty professors in this country. Half of y’all spend more time on Reddit arguing with students than grading papers or coming up with a half decent lesson plan. Lazy, entitled fucks.

Hi, I (F/34) need advice desperately and would appreciate anyone with experience or wisdom to share!
For context:
my parents have been on bad terms since I was 6 or 7, so its been a good 28 years coming. About half a year ago my dad filed for divorce, again\.* I was NC (no contact) with both parents at the time, having finally chosen to prioritise my mental health (various reasons, but related to this situation, i was exhausted from being their mode of communication since i was a child, as they have stopped talking civilly for years except through me.
My dad lives and works in a different country but stays with us when he visits once or twice a year to renew his visa. However, covid forced him to come back and live with my mom and brother because visas were cancelled. No one expected covid to last so long, so no one was prepared for this living arrangement. They had no choice but to communicate daily, and with me on NC and no one to referee the situation, they are now apparently, finally actually underway with a divorce.
\(the first time being 10 years ago but my mom flat out refused.)*
How i found out:
I've had to break NC with my nmom 3 days ago because she is undergoing a surgery, and there is no one supporting her. With zero knowledge that a divorce was actually, finally happening, she randomly forwarded me a message with regards to taking ownership of some family heirlooms from a conversation with the lawyers. Definitely caught me off guard.
Heres where i need advice:
I would like to know more details about what is happening with the details of ownership of the house, so i can find some way to prepare mentally and possibly financially for the fallout.
My mom historically has a tendency to flip the script to manipulate the situation so I would prefer not to open that can of worms.
My brother simply does not care.
I tried to ask my dad for details and told him "no judgement, i just need to know what is happening". He's non-confrontational in general and replied about health and exercise instead🤦‍♀️ I tried asking more directly that my question is pertaining to the divorce. he apologised for not letting me know he filed, but that was it.
1) Any advice on how to navigate this, perhaps if you've had a similar situation?
2) Should I just wait it out and stay out of it to the best of my ability? (This feels like a great option for right now , but the what ifs are stressing me out)
emotionally I'm living my worst memories all over again so literal brain paralysis in terms of what to do.
just to note, we live in a country where houses are really expensive due to land constraints, so the house is a big deal. worried one parent is going to lose a home, as it seems my dad has decided to not go back abroad, and potentially might fight for the house. Either way I am trying to stay out of the refereeing, and let them sort this out as adults. But should this happen, the responsibility is on me, and although i am employed and in a stable job i don't have the financial capabilities to buy one of them a new home/rent long term.
i apologise that this ended up being longish! thank you in advance❤

My roommate and I moved in together about two years ago with his girlfriend at the time. I was nervous because it be my first time not at my parents and he isn’t always the best with money so I worried about costs getting pushed onto me since I have a stable, full time job. We’ll fast forward only a couple months in and he cheats on his girlfriend, she leaves and now I have to absorb half her rent. He is known to constantly have a girlfriend so it’s not like I was surprised when Jas came into the picture but she’s also his boss/mentor so I don’t agree with it because that just has the means to end badly but that is his choice
What’s really frustrating is that after a short period of time of them getting together, the foot traffic in this house has went up. At first it was bringing all the co workers over after work, night after night without asking and I was cool with it at first because more friends is nice but then they were always there I mentioned it and he said he saw my point and apologized which fixed that but now him and this girlfriend are attached at the hip and are ALWAYS HERE She has her own place but stays here too often ( she even won’t go home to pill her cat and has the back neighbour from our house which is also a friend go on his bike….when she could drive the 5 minutes) She was constantly eating food and oddly condiments so anytime I need mayo or ketchup it was gone after I just bought it. To add insult to the groceries, my roommate hasn’t bought any in over two months but has been eating mine saying he’ll get the next one.
I have bad mental health and none of this is helping plus I can’t move because of the cost of rent around here living on your own is too much
I just wanted a place to vent and if anyone has advice to deal with this in not a passive aggressive way please let me know
EDIT: I forgot to mention I brought it up to him and he simply said that’s what it’s like having a roommate and basically get over it

I'm new to all this legal stuff and I'm currently pursuing to modify child support and custody over my kids since my ex wants me to keep them more. Currently she's forcing me to pay 100% child support and refuses to take care of the kids half the time. I've calculated all the days I've had since I was first put on child support in the beginning of May and from the end of April and to the beginning of June I've had the kids for a total of 35 days which is well over the agreed time. I haven't been able to pay much child support or basically get anything done towards that because I have the kids way more than I should for someone who has to pay 1,000 dollars a month for child support while working a highly low income job.