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Not_a_Number

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Posts posted by Not_a_Number

  1. I don't want to restart a giant debate, but for me personally, the fact that the excess deaths are lower makes up my mind. Lockdowns have such immense costs that they need to at least decrease excess deaths if they're to justify themselves. If they don't do even that, I would never again support them. 

    I was very pro-lockdown at the time. I look around right now, and the lockdowns did incredible harm to the fabric of every community I'm a part of. The homeschooling community in NYC hasn't recovered yet. I've been doing a lot of work to make it lively again and it's hard. 

    As for voluntary stuff, absolutely. What I'd like to see in some utopian world I don't live in is the level of trust that results in people actually following public health guidelines without lockdowns. I'd want people to be very careful in vulnerable places, masks to be distributed, all sorts of stuff that would decrease virus transmission. 

    But lockdowns again? I'll take a pass. 

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  2. I'd heavily weigh what kind of person your DDIL is when thinking about what she said. This kind of blame-shifting is standard. 

    I've actually had it in my life recently -- I told my mom that I'd need a break from talking to her, and she immediately called my DH and started talking about how she was worried about me being mentally ill. That's the only way her brain could process the rejection -- to make it be something entirely outside her control, entirely about me. 

    It's a very common tactic with personality disorders. I don't know your DDIL, so I can't say if that's what's going on, but it's something to keep in mind. 

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  3. As for what to do with your son . . . I know that I personally am not able to feel otherwise than I actually feel. If I feel shellshocked, sad, and like it's too sudden, then I won't be able to act like I feel otherwise. My empathy will not be genuine. It will feel wrong to the other person. 

     

    What I'd do is stop giving advice and be open about how you feel, but also try to get to a place where you realize that your grief doesn't give you the right to tell him what to do and that your feelings are about YOU. And I'd try to see if you can have conversations with your son where you just listen with a completely open mind and don't make suggestions. I'd guess that if you do that, you'll have a far better understanding of where he is and your feelings will shift, too, and you'll be able to be genuinely supportive. 

     

    And if even after listening, you think he should try couples' therapy, then your opinion will have the merit of being informed. (And in that case, I'd make that suggestion ONCE and leave it be. Deal with your feelings about how things are and be there for your son.) 

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  4. 3 hours ago, goldberry said:

    I get that. It's pretty much what I've been doing for the last year or more. There have been cracks in our friendship that I've tried to address and she has not wanted to discuss. So step by step we've been retreating to this surface level communication. It's only made her anger and resentment build up more, it didn't make anything better. To me that's fine temporarily but not permanently. 

    Any of us can find more "acquaintances" in our life, people we are friendly with, but can't be totally ourselves around or honest with.  She has said awful things about me. I don't see it healthy for me to keep investing in a former best friend who now wants to move to acquaintance while still thinking awful things about me that I'm not allowed to address. I was fine all this time giving her more space. But she's telling me she doesn't see that changing.  I can't rationalize it anymore. I feel like I would just be setting myself up as a target for her anger. 

    In her romantic relationships there have been serious problems that she has just ignored and carried on like nothing was happening. Horrible hateful arguments that they would just wake up the next day and start talking about the weather. So I get that for her that is not an unusual response. But every time, that just leads to nothing being resolved and the eventual total blowup and destruction of the relationship. I mean, has that philosophy LONG TERM ever worked for anyone? It's been like two years of this for us. So yes, I hear that's what she wants from me right now, but I am not able to continue it, and don't see it ending up well if it did.

     

    I’m not suggesting a return a surface level stuff. You’ll need to hash it out with her and not let it build up under the surface. But I still wouldn’t have texted any of that.

    I don’t know how to explain. The path I see forward is tricky and uncertain. But it sounds like you really value the friendship, so in your place I’d try it, I think. 

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  5. I have a totally different take from most other people. 

    Next time she reaches out, just talk to her. Don't ask for clarifications and just let her be where she's at. It sounds like she's hurt and not feeling trust and I don't think any of the texts you sent were a good idea, because they were liable to get misinterpreted -- that's how it goes with text communications when there are hurt feelings.

    She sounds like a difficult and emotionally damaged person. It's worth thinking about whether you even want a friendship. But if you do, I don't think this is the right way to engage. 

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  6. 5 hours ago, Clarita said:

    College course content was harder and the level of thought required was harder, but my AP courses required more work. The other part of that is in high school I tried to do as many classes as I could in AP, but in college the hard classes I took were only in the subjects I cared about (those that had to do with my major). 

    That sounds like my experience as well. 

    I'm Canadian, so I didn't take AP classes (although my DH did, I think.) I did go to a school with a gifted program, but that's not the same thing. But at least in my experience, the level of thinking required in college was much, much higher. 

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  7. 8 hours ago, Katy said:

    I went to a highly selective university and I can confirm my AP classes were much more difficult, at least in everything except math. The material was essentially the same, but at my high school at least the grades weren’t about cramming for the test that was essentially the same as a college final because there was an extremely inflated weight on homework that was essentially busy work. IE: don’t just read these 20-40 pages a night & memorize relevant facts in whatever study method works best for you, but also do 10 pages of notes in this complex way that isn’t relevant to learning anything, but proves you can jump through a ridiculous hoop. Extra points for more pages. Homework and class participation points are more relevant to your weighted grade than scoring a 5 on the exam, so you must excel on both to get into a highly competitive school. 

    Undergraduate liberal arts classes don’t have any of that level of BS. A handful of papers and a couple exams are all that mattered. I went back to school AFTER my highly selective one. The undergraduate material at any regionally accredited school is about the same as a highly competitive university. That’s why they must be regionally accredited to transfer. The difference is whether the professors are nationally known and the networking you have with people who will be very powerful in years to come. Also going to a top school gives you better chances with grad school, assuming you participated in research. 

    Anyway, you don’t have to take my word for it. Most highly selective schools have at least some open courses where you can watch the lectures and evaluate the homework and exams yourself. It’s not harder, the only reason to go is the networking later. 

    I'm not quite following. Are you saying the AP classes were harder because there was more weight on things other than tests?

    I remember feeling that college classes required a higher level of thinking and dispensed with the hoops I had to jump through in high school. I think that's consistent with what you're saying, although I'm not sure. 

  8. 6 hours ago, Katy said:

    I don’t doubt grade inflation is a problem. I’m not sure this is a good example. I doubt the kids who worked hard enough to get into Yale would suddenly be struggling with the work unless they had extenuating circumstances or new health/mental health issues. You don’t get in there without extensive honors or AP classes, which are generally more difficult than undergraduate courses. I absolutely believe STEM classes are more difficult unless the kid’s been in math competitions or using AOPS though. 

    I’d be extremely surprised if AP classes are generally more difficult than college classes at a good school. The level of thought required at college is much higher in my experience.

    It hasn’t been my experience when teaching math that all kids at good schools are ready for the classes. All the kids do work hard. But there are plenty who don’t know how to learn or to thoroughly understand difficult concepts.

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  9. Yeah, people are definitely using the word differently in this thread. Lots of us are not describing standard co-ops. 

    The purely social parts of the group I run do take place in the afternoon -- we don't take a whole day for them. The kids see each other in the morning, but only in the context of classes. 

    A group that took up the entire day and was of no academic value would be a hard no for me. Partially because anyone who wanted to take part in that would probably have very different homeschooling values from us . . . 

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  10. I think groups can really vary. 

    I run a homeschool social group with a long afternoon playdate once a week and lots of high quality enrichment Zoom classes on other days. (They are small and a la carte -- everyone takes what they want.) This has worked really well for us for maintaining connections for my older girl and I plan to do the same with my younger girl if she's interested. 

    I've also seen really crappy co-ops with totally worthless academics and pods with classes the kids don't even want to be in. 

    I wouldn't write every co-op off unless there are really very limited options. (And I think some established groups don't advertise much, so keeping an eye out for quality stuff is key.) 

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  11. I’m really sorry. This is so cruddy.

    What I’d do here is get to a point where you’re at peace and don’t feel like you need her back, then text her apologizing for anything you feel about it, tell her you miss her and love her, and that you’ll be there if she reaches out.

    Then I’d let it go. This isn’t yours to fix. She obviously has issues that go way beyond your relationship.

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  12. My grandparents were evacuated in the war as little kids. People would settle down in different cities than where they started. People wouldn’t see their fathers again after uprooting their lives.

    War is terrible. War that’s far away is terrible, too, especially if you have family that fought in it. But the scale of the upheaval is different when it’s war on your own soil, in your own city.

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  13. We’ve driven through many states when driving from NY to CA, and gosh, so many are pretty. Here are some I remember:

    Upstate NY has beautiful forests and Niagara. Montana has amazing mountains. Washington has lots of lovely landscapes. California had a lot of everything. Arizona had amazing alien desert landscapes with cacti — we didn’t make it to the Grand Canyon, but I know it has that going for it, too. North Caroline was very pretty and wooded… and has mountains too, iirc.

    That’s what’s jumping out at me right now!! This is making me want to drive across the country to California again, goodness 😂.

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  14. Just now, Idalou said:

    Everything? Maybe. That's kinda what makes an insane killer. But you can be perfectly normal and still be enraged about being a second class citizen, about not being able to travel freely, about having your farms stolen and being forced out of your homes, about police coming in the middle of the night and taking your husband while not being told why, about roads being segregated and having to wait 5 hours to pass through checkpoints to go to work. Israeli government is guilty of that. Hamas' slaughter has ruined the chances of Palestinians to live freely in dignity for possibly forever. 

    Everything plausible I can see moving forward. Not everything EVERYTHING. 

    • Like 1
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