Bibliotectress

Well, I had been happy with YouTube music for years, but I’m frustrated by this at the moment:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/songs-blocked-youtube-legal-dispute-sesac-1236017120/

Ugh. We caught a kid doing that in my high school library last May. We radioed for help. The campus supervisor walked him outside, talked to him about it, and sent him back to us to finish the test he was working on. I couldn’t believe it. Later, we told admin about it and had to write witness statements. He was a freshman and said it’s what he does at home when he’s sitting around, and didn’t realize he was doing it. None of the students know, as far as I’m aware. We all kept it very quiet.

Fun fact! Erin Hunter is a pseudonym for a collective of authors including Tui Sutherland! She wrote Wings of Fire after she stopped writing/editing Erin Hunter books. I found out while I was working in an elementary school library.

Not my favorite, but I recently finished the A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas. Nothing in them is original, and she heavily borrows from folk tales and mythology, but she makes it very satisfying. She’s REALLY good at knowing what her audience wants, imo, so it was fun to read.

I’d you enjoyed Breath of the Wild, you’ll probably love Tears of the Kingdom. Some people felt it wasn’t different enough from Breath of the Wild, but there’s so much more to explore. And there was a part in the story that was so emotional, it made me ugly cry.

Wow! Thanks for the explanation! That’s a really great meme that went completely over my head.

Honestly, I’m at a loss. It’s so hard to get a single school of teachers to stick to one policy, let alone at a district or state level. When I send an all-staff email at my school (and they’re occasionally important with scheduling details), Outlook often tells me that only 67% of them even opened it.

I feel like you’d either have to: a) incorporate cellphones as a tool in class and have standard repercussions (e.g. 1st/2nd time earn a detention, 3rd time earn a Saturday school) for kids texting/on social media, or b) do something like a box on the desk so it’s visible but they can’t touch it.

I just don’t think it’s possible to ban them at school. Too many parents don’t respect any school authority figures after COVID with all the culture war stuff (fight to return to full day school, fight to not wear masks, fight to censor bipoc and lgbtq+ books/lessons/celebrations, etc.). I think either way, it’ll just end up being another shitty part of a teacher’s job.

I work in a high school in a California school district where they’re discussing banning cell phones.

Most teachers I’ve talked to about it think it’s really fucking stupid because you’re not going to be able to ban them, partly because a TON of parents showed up at the school board meeting to say they would send them with their kid anyway for a variety of reasons. The board also talked about different things they could buy to take phones and lock them up during class or as students come in. Most of the solutions were pretty expensive, and some of the schools are literally falling apart, so that also pissed people off.

A great start would be to have a campus-wide rule that is CONSISTENT. Some teachers give out a detention if they even see the phone. Some do activities with QR codes and use them as tools. Some have boxes on the corner of their desk and students are required to keep their phone in the box so the teacher can see if they reach for it. We have students with free periods, and if they don’t go home, they hang out outside around campus or in the library. Should phones be banned then too? Or just during class?

There are so many ways to try to deal with it, and at least in my school (not even the district as a whole), every teacher deals with it differently. I doubt the state of New York is all that different.

Anywhere not on the coast or high in mountains, yes. I’m in a large valley, and summers can be pretty rough. Not Phoenix rough, but still rough.

Wow that’s a huge hail ball! I get excited when they’re marble-sized.

Oh my God. This one is my favorite.

I played that game obsessively over two days and got through ending E, and it absolutely destroyed me. I was depressed for weeks.

You’re right; he didn’t specifically say that. He called a Twitter post that said Jewish people hate white people was “so right.” And that’s a big Neonazi thing.

So… he didn’t say Hitler was right, just that a major Nazi tenet is.

Oh. That’s one of those words I’ve only ever read (generally in brit lit), and thought it was pronounced as row like row a boat. Thank you for the correct pronunciation!

I want a cat just so I can call him Bumbleboobs.

Russia literally invaded a democratic neighboring country. There was a lot of empathy for drafted Russian soldiers until their calls home were leaked and people started finding mass graves full of Ukrainian citizens. I’m not really sure what you’re expecting here?

A different perspective of fighting back when a country invades you and murders, rapes, and pillages your people?

Please illuminate us on this super meta perspective.

Also in Northern California, not nearly as gorgeous of a view, but I was helping a friend and her husband pull honey because they had just started beekeeping, and started with a lot of hives (due to someone retiring).

Anyway, I was there for hours with them in a large garage in the foothills in the middle of the woods, and I really needed to go to the bathroom. It was a similar setup to OP’s picture, except 3 of the sides were up. No roof, no door at all, and it was like 105 degrees out.

At first I was nervous, but no one was going to look and I was facing the woods, so… weird experience, but it was actually kinda pleasant? It was just me, the trees, some birds, and the bugs! I’ve gone on week-long canoe trips where we had to dig a poop hole with our own trowel, but the mix of civilized (kindof an outhouse??) and not civilized at all was MUCH weirder.

That was a great show. I miss goofy (occasionally VERY serious) scifi.

Edited to add: Sliders and Quantum Leap were my favorites. Although it came later, I felt like Eureka had a very similar feeling in tone.

I followed it a bit, and I followed the one that preceded it in England. Oddly, some evidence that was allowed in England wasn’t allowed in the US, and some evidence allowed in the US wasn’t allowed in England, so a lot of opinions are different based on which trial they paid more attention to.

Basically, they’re both awful people who were regularly blackout drunk/high, and had a mutually abusive, toxic relationship. A lot of the arguing online is about who was the mostest abusive/toxic, partly (imo) based on the parasocial relationship they have with their celebrity of choice and who had the best zingers in court. In the US trial, Johnny Depp was charming in court and had GREAT lawyers, and Amber Heard came across as very fake (like she was performing for the jury) with terrible lawyers. In the England version, Johnny Depp admitted he didn’t remember what he did or didn’t do to her because he was really high and drunk a lot. They both have witnesses with pretty convincing stories. There was also a lot of fighting about who pushed whom down the stairs, who hit whom, who cut whom with a bottle, etc.

TL;DR - They’re both emotionally unstable trash and would be AWFUL to date. You didn’t miss much.

I understand feeling a little off, a little bit outside of everything and everyone. I feel like I’ve never been anyone’s #1 choice to spend time with. Not my family, friends, husband, or kids. Never. It gets to me, even though I get it and don’t want to spend time with myself either. It’s tough. I hope you can find a good group of friends that you click with and can at least have fun experiences, even if you have periods of being alone in between.

Also, for the record, the weird dudes have no idea they’re weird. If you’re conscious about how you approach people, I’m already 100% sure you’re not the problem. As we get older, everyone’s lives are so busy and already entrenched in whatever they have going on that it’s tougher to make deep friendships. Although I do see it happen again in the retired crowd. I like to go salsa dancing sometimes (well… I did last year. I don’t find joy in anything right now tbh), and most of the others that go are in their 50s+, with a lot in their 60s and 70s. So I guess life doesn’t end at 40 after all?

Good luck, internet stranger.