Having a Bad Day? Stop here for a Good Rant!

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

My husband and I bicycle, but we are not Jeff-type cyclists.  The Kansas City metro area has a ton of awesome hike & bike paths; we use those.  Right now, I could theoretically bike from home to work using these paths for 98% of the route.  It would take me an hour, and I'd arrive to work smelling bad enough to make my cube neighbors cry, so I don't do it.

 

What I hate are the idiots who completely fail to use the pass callout.  If you are about to pass someone, standard cycling etiquette is to call out, "On your left!" or something appropriate.  Husband and I do this.  Most cyclers do this.  Some do not, and they scare the everloving rust out of me every time.  I blistered the ears of a teenaged boy one day because his failure to do this nearly caused an accident, and I rather like being intact and not bleeding, thankyouverymuch.

 

 

In other news, apparently a "stye" is just a scary medical word for "you have a zit in one of your eyelash follicles".  You know, when I was a teenager, I used to think that reaching the second half of my thirties might mean that all my acne problems would be gone.  No, the acne has just leveled up and is coming up with new, creative ways to annoy me.

 

No contact lenses for a week.  OH JOY.

 

You and your husband are good bicyclers. You are also nothing like the cyclists where I live. These cyclists will actually use the vehicle lane, ​getting in front of a line of cars 5 or 10 deep, blissfully unaware of the fact that the speed limit is 45 and they are incapable of going faster than 20. Or they'll cut across a vehicle lane without signaling or waiting for traffic to clear, forcing cars to slam on the brakes. 

[Kaymyth she/her]

You and your husband are good bicyclers. You are also nothing like the cyclists where I live. These cyclists will actually use the vehicle lane, ​getting in front of a line of cars 5 or 10 deep, blissfully unaware of the fact that the speed limit is 45 and they are incapable of going faster than 20. Or they'll cut across a vehicle lane without signaling or waiting for traffic to clear, forcing cars to slam on the brakes. 

 

They're not unaware.  They may be blissful, but they are definitely aware.

 

Every group's gotta have a pile of bacon-fed knaves who ruin it for the rest of us...

[Voidus]

I would like to publicly thank my neighbours for just being so thoughtful and amazing. What I really need to help the agonizing headaches I get at 3am that prevent me from sleeping is insanely loud music and yelling that can be heard from 3 blocks away and is still playing at 4am.

Thankyou so much you wonderful specimens of human beings.

[Kobold King he/him]

I would like to publicly thank my neighbours for just being so thoughtful and amazing. What I really need to help the agonizing headaches I get at 3am that prevent me from sleeping is insanely loud music and yelling that can be heard from 3 blocks away and is still playing at 4am.

Thankyou so much you wonderful specimens of human beings.

 

For a minute I thought this was the Good News thread, so the sarcasm threw me for a loop momentarily. Sorry you have to deal with that sort of thing.

[+Slowswift he/him]

Argh. Buggy mouse. Double-clicks and right-clicks and sometimes both when I don't want it to. And it's especially annoying as I have a digital arts class that requires drawing... with a mouse. 

[Kestrel she/her]

Took the ACT test today. First time around. Unlike the SAT, which I've taken.. five times now? Anyway, the science section was all physics, which I haven't taken, and I had no idea how to write the essay. And ran out of time on the math. Bleh. My brain is mush and I have so much homework to do. I might as well just sit back and read Warbreaker.

[Delightful]

I would like to publicly thank my neighbours for just being so thoughtful and amazing. What I really need to help the agonizing headaches I get at 3am that prevent me from sleeping is insanely loud music and yelling that can be heard from 3 blocks away and is still playing at 4am.

Thankyou so much you wonderful specimens of human beings.

Can you call the cops on them?

Took the ACT test today. First time around. Unlike the SAT, which I've taken.. five times now? Anyway, the science section was all physics, which I haven't taken, and I had no idea how to write the essay. And ran out of time on the math. Bleh. My brain is mush and I have so much homework to do. I might as well just sit back and read Warbreaker.

You write an essay for physics?? (Coming from someone who's never studied the subject).

I'm so sorry about your parents, I've been through something similar. It's always gonna be tough having your parents angry at you, especially if your father is emotionally abusive. What I found helps is talking to friends, and letting yourself see that you have an emotional support system outside of your parents (I and everyone else here is also always available to talk if you want to message).

The other thing helps your own self-esteem - don't listen to the "you could have done better" and "you're a failure talk". You've done the best you possibly can, and you should be proud of that, no matter what anyone else says. No one but you knows the extent of your capabilites, so you should feel totally secure in the knowledge that you tried, that you put everything into it, even if the results wasnt a nice shiny A. Work ethic will get you further than pretty letters in the long run.

Also, is there anything you could do to prove to your parents that you're trying, aside from magic grades? Try help round the house more than usual? Unless you feel unsafe at home then I probably wouldn't.

I'm sorry and I hope you're ok. Message me if you need to.

Edited April 18, 2015 by Delightful

[Kaymyth she/her]

Took the ACT test today. First time around. Unlike the SAT, which I've taken.. five times now? Anyway, the science section was all physics, which I haven't taken, and I had no idea how to write the essay. And ran out of time on the math. Bleh. My brain is mush and I have so much homework to do. I might as well just sit back and read Warbreaker.

 

Egads, girl.  You're 16 and you've already taken the SAT 5 times?  AND a musician?  You're basically Me: the Next Generation.

 

Except for me, it was the opposite.  I took the ACT umpty-zillion times (starting way too young, and rocked it hard enough that I dare not speak my score, lest someone accuse me of trolling), but only took the SAT once.  Didn't do too badly, either, given that I had completely forgotten to bring a calculator and got to do all the math by hand.

Edited April 18, 2015 by Kaymyth

[Kestrel she/her]

Oh no, not on the ACT. There's four sections, plus an essay. Reading, writing, math, science, then an essay. I obviously can't post the prompt but mine was a persuasive. No idea if they all were, though.

I need to take more ACTs gaghhh. The SAT honestly isn't too bad for me. Hopefully by the time I take it junior year I'll do the same thing, be so used to it and know the ends and outs of it so much. But they're changing the test a bit, and I'll be the first year through when they do. So I'm scared.

ANYWAY.

I would really like to thank everyone who's replied at my other post here.. I truely appreciate it. I find it so hard to reply to those messages because I get really teary eyed and sappy and emotional and that isn't good. Normally I just reply in the evening before bed but sadly I haven't been able to work up one here. I really don't know how I feel around the house; Dad and I have been avoiding each other since the incident Thursday night but I sense some sort of firestorm later. He's been bored all day and looking for something to get mad at.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Oh no, not on the ACT. There's four sections, plus an essay. Reading, writing, math, science, then an essay. I obviously can't post the prompt but mine was a persuasive. No idea if they all were, though.

I need to take more ACTs gaghhh. The SAT honestly isn't too bad for me. Hopefully by the time I take it junior year I'll do the same thing, be so used to it and know the ends and outs of it so much. But they're changing the test a bit, and I'll be the first year through when they do. So I'm scared.

ANYWAY.

I would really like to thank everyone who's replied at my other post here.. I truely appreciate it. I find it so hard to reply to those messages because I get really teary eyed and sappy and emotional and that isn't good. Normally I just reply in the evening before bed but sadly I haven't been able to work up one here. I really don't know how I feel around the house; Dad and I have been avoiding each other since the incident Thursday night but I sense some sort of firestorm later. He's been bored all day and looking for something to get mad at.

 

I don't remember my score on the SAT, but I also remember it not mattering as much as everyone said it did. (I also went to community college for two years before transferring to a four-year university, so that probably impacted my view of those tests.) 

 

Also...

 

I'm sorry. It sucks. I know it does, and I know how much it sucks, because my parents would do the same thing. All I can do is reiterate what Delightful said—cultivate supportive friendships outside of your family, even if they're online. And don't let your parents criticize those friendships. Well, let them—I don't see any way of stopping them, if that's what they do—but don't listen to their criticism. If you find some friends who are good for you and they help you see the best in yourself without dragging you off on wild "sin parties" every weekend (or….something…..I'm not sure what teens are into these days ) then lean on them. Don't let your parents spoil it. 

[Kobold King he/him]

... wild "sin parties" every weekend...

 

I think they call that "dubstep" nowadays.

[Delightful]

Lark, nothing wrong with getting teary eyed and emotional sometimes. It's just a side effect of being a human being (and particularly of creative people).

Kobold: dubstep and snapchat, the sin of a generation .

(And I refuse to blame selfie sticks on teenagers)

Edited April 18, 2015 by Delightful

[the winter system]

I saw a selfie stick once. It's kinda ridiculous. Once I was in an art museum and EVERYONE was taking selfies of themselves with famous paintings. Annoyingly. In everyone's faces.

[Kaymyth she/her]

Oh no, not on the ACT. There's four sections, plus an essay. Reading, writing, math, science, then an essay. I obviously can't post the prompt but mine was a persuasive. No idea if they all were, though.

 

The essay is new; they didn't have that back when I took it.  Or maybe it's not new so much as I just dated myself here.      You know, "Back in my day, we filled in the scantron bubbles for every single question!  And we walked to the test!  In a blizzard!  Uphill both ways!"

 

 

I need to take more ACTs gaghhh. The SAT honestly isn't too bad for me. Hopefully by the time I take it junior year I'll do the same thing, be so used to it and know the ends and outs of it so much. But they're changing the test a bit, and I'll be the first year through when they do. So I'm scared.

 

I don't really remember the ACT as being that bad, but I was always pretty good at standardized testing.  It does mix it up every time, though; I doubt that next time your science section will be so physics-heavy.  It'll be something else entirely.

 

The math section was always what killed me.  Not because I wasn't good at math, but because I went to a tiny, backwater high school with limited resources and class offerings.  There was no opportunity to start on algebra before high school, which limited what I could progress through classwise.  It wasn't possible to make it farther than some very basic pre-calc.

 

I'm sorry. It sucks. I know it does, and I know how much it sucks, because my parents would do the same thing. All I can do is reiterate what Delightful said—cultivate supportive friendships outside of your family, even if they're online. And don't let your parents criticize those friendships. Well, let them—I don't see any way of stopping them, if that's what they do—but don't listen to their criticism. If you find some friends who are good for you and they help you see the best in yourself without dragging you off on wild "sin parties" every weekend (or….something…..I'm not sure what teens are into these days ) then lean on them. Don't let your parents spoil it. 

 

This.  As crazy and overwhelming as it seems right now, it won't be that much longer before it's all a memory.  I do not envy you; you couldn't pay me to be 16 again.

 

And, of course, I was a horribly rebellious child.  Oh, yes.  Nights before Saturday band contests, instead of going to bed early, I'd short myself on sleep and stay up to watch Doctor Who on public television.  It had a late Friday night timeslot, see, and my VCR didn't record well anymore.  I'd build a blanket fort around my TV so the light didn't leak downstairs, plug in my headphones for the sound, and stay up till 1AM to get my fix.  I had my priorities straight, yo.

[maxal she/her]

Not being a resident of the USA, can someone please be so kind to explain what these ACT and SAT tests are for and what they entails? I get it is the basis on which you are accepted into University or College, whatever the difference between the two is 

 

Here, they just look at your grades... and we have Universities. Alright, we also have this thing called Cegep which is an in between level between High School and University.

[Kaymyth she/her]

Not being a resident of the USA, can someone please be so kind to explain what these ACT and SAT tests are for and what they entails? I get it is the basis on which you are accepted into University or College, whatever the difference between the two is 

 

Here, they just look at your grades... and we have Universities. Alright, we also have this thing called Cegep which is an in between level between High School and University.

 

They're basically standardized tests that are supposed to rank how college-ready you are.  All high school students who want to get into college have to take them, and different colleges have minimum scores that they require for acceptance.  It's a deeply flawed system, but we Americans are score-obsessed.  (And people wonder why, with my education degree, I work for a bank.  Among other things it's LESS paperwork and red tape.  There's you're mindsplosion for the day.)

 

The difference between a university and a college is kind of silly.  A college is a place where you can go to get a college degree.  A university is a single institution that houses multiple colleges, usually divided up by discipline (i.e., a college of sciences, a college of engineering, etc.)

[Kobold King he/him]

The stray kitten we took in, named Bliss, is missing. He's been spending nights outside, which we don't try to prevent because we don't want him to feel trapped... most mornings he's waiting by the door for us, but this morning he's nowhere to be seen. I've been praying like crazy, but I can't shake off this sickly feeling of anxiety.

[Voidus]

The stray kitten we took in, named Bliss, is missing. He's been spending nights outside, which we don't try to prevent because we don't want him to feel trapped... most mornings he's waiting by the door for us, but this morning he's nowhere to be seen. I've been praying like crazy, but I can't shake off this sickly feeling of anxiety.

Hope he's ok, we had a bunny that did that to us all the time, was nowhere to be seen for hours, we looked all over the neigbourhood horrified that he'd been hit by a car or something. He was waiting on the doorstep when we came back eating some lettuce he pulled from the bin.   

If only they knew how much we worried about them.

[Kestrel she/her]

Not being a resident of the USA, can someone please be so kind to explain what these ACT and SAT tests are for and what they entails? I get it is the basis on which you are accepted into University or College, whatever the difference between the two is 

 

Here, they just look at your grades... and we have Universities. Alright, we also have this thing called Cegep which is an in between level between High School and University.

 To be honest, I have no idea what the differences between the two are. I believe ACT focuses more on math/science, whereas the SAT focuses on vocabulary and writing. Both have the same portions, though, except I don't think the SAT has science. 

The stray kitten we took in, named Bliss, is missing. He's been spending nights outside, which we don't try to prevent because we don't want him to feel trapped... most mornings he's waiting by the door for us, but this morning he's nowhere to be seen. I've been praying like crazy, but I can't shake off this sickly feeling of anxiety.

Oh man, I'm really sorry. We had something similar happen to us a while back. We picked up a stray cat in North Carolina, got her fixed and took her home. Lasted about three or so months, then she disappeared. I hope things go better for your cat! I've heard stories of cats that have returned home after a few weeks so don't give up hope.

[the winter system]

The stray kitten we took in, named Bliss, is missing. He's been spending nights outside, which we don't try to prevent because we don't want him to feel trapped... most mornings he's waiting by the door for us, but this morning he's nowhere to be seen. I've been praying like crazy, but I can't shake off this sickly feeling of anxiety.

Hopefully he's okay.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

The stray kitten we took in, named Bliss, is missing. He's been spending nights outside, which we don't try to prevent because we don't want him to feel trapped... most mornings he's waiting by the door for us, but this morning he's nowhere to be seen. I've been praying like crazy, but I can't shake off this sickly feeling of anxiety.

Oh no. I hope he's all right and he turns up soon.

[Kobold King he/him]

He's alive! He hasn't come home yet, but we spotted him prowling around in the cacti on the fringes of our property. We're hopeful he'll get hungry to come back to the house soon.

 

Thanks for the sympathy, guys! You're all awesome.

[the winter system]

YES! YAY! KOBOLD'S CAT IS OKAY! Do you have any pictures? Perhaps you could put some food out in front of your house so he sees it?

[Briar King he/him]

Oh I want to throw up! The smell of dog pee in two of our bathrooms is so disgusting. I can't stand having a dog that becomes terrified hearing 1 drop of rain and empties her bladder. I have to mop or wash towels the kids leave on ground 3-4 times.

[Kaymyth she/her]

He's alive! He hasn't come home yet, but we spotted him prowling around in the cacti on the fringes of our property. We're hopeful he'll get hungry to come back to the house soon.

 

Thanks for the sympathy, guys! You're all awesome.

 

He probably got a lucky hunt in last night.  Soon, his prowess will grow, and you'll be getting "presents" on your doorstep.  Oh, the joys of severed lizard heads!