Carrie

Recently, I've heard a lot of people criticizing these kinds of teachers. I, personally, kind of enjoyed it when I was in school so long as I was actually learning the subject as well. 

For example, I had a literature teacher in college who connected every point he was trying to make to Star Wars. My peers HATED it and thought it was an annoying waste of time, but I thought it set his class apart from the ten other English classes I took at University. I also feel like I've learned a lot of facts about life and school from teachers who got off topic. Some conversations we had really stuck with me. Like I had a Japanese teacher who went on tangents about cultural differences at points that had nothing to do with learning the language, but they were interesting. 

What do you guys think?

So I’m considering getting a kitten. The one I’ve been looking at is half Siamese. I have a job that is 7am to 4pm (sometimes til 5), and I’m off weekends and also off for the entire summer. But is that too long to leave such a social cat breed alone daily? 

I can come home during lunch certain days to play/check on him. But not every day. 

What do you think? 

I’m thinking of getting a kitten. I’m a young, single woman who lives alone. I just have some questions I want to put out there.

Firstly, the one I’m thinking of is one I saw on a classified ads page online for my town. It’s a fairly young kitten and I just fell in love with his pic. I mentioned this to my coworkers and one of them said they didn’t like the idea of getting kittens from classified ads, and I should go to a shelter instead. I understand getting pets from pet stores can be bad because they get animals from mills. But is there anything really problematic about responding to a classified ad? 

Secondly, any tips? What should I expect? What should I remember to do? How can I be a good kitten owner? I know if I get this one, he’ll need vaccinations and to get neutered. 

I’d love advice! 

I don’t really ever see people talking about them calmly— only making memes about them or getting angry about twitter’s biases. I want to hear honest thoughts. 

I’ve heard that steampunk doesn’t tend to do well in the form of a novel. Do you agree? If so why or why not? Do you enjoy them? Why or why not? Finally, are there any steampunk novels you suggest that have done well? The only one that comes to mind for me is Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. 

I can’t tell if I’m just not as in touch with the YA genre as I used to be or if reading and/or the fantasy/sci-fi genre is less popular. I remember everyone and their grandmom knowing about Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, The Hunger Games, and Twilight. Are there still series like that? The YA books I tend to hear about now are more like thought-provoking single novels of realistic fiction (Like The Hate You Give). 

I guess I’m just wondering if I can get suggestions of really big YA fantasy series that are recent. Or, if that’s not a thing so much anymore, why do you think that is? 

I’ve gotten maybe a little too addicted to soda lately. I don’t gain weight easily (I’m underweight) and I have good dental health... so I didn’t worry about all the sugar. But are there other reasons I should worry? I think I have about two bottles a day. Can that do any serious damage in the long run? What’s a reasonable amount of soda?

Yes, I get doctors could answer this better, but I’m just looking to see if average people would be concerned by this amount.

I’ve been doubt this since early high school. I spend literally hours every day just pacing around, daydreaming about things. Sometimes the daydreams are really fictional like imagining being in a fantasy kingdom. Other times they’re realistic like imagining myself as a published writer or reimagining a conversation with someone that didn’t go the way I wanted.

The issue is that I haven’t been productive in years due to this. I always turn in work late and I haven’t spend time on things I’d really like to do like learning a language because every time I sit down, I can’t say still and have to pace around inside my own mind until the sun sets. I can’t even do the things I used to love like reading books.

It’s sad... I feel like I’ll amount to nothing because of this. I also feel like my daydreams are another life and getting rid of them will make me boring and empty.

If you’re a maladaptive daydreamer, how did you help yourself?

I work at a small restaurant that’s horrendously managed. Lots of furniture and appliances are broken, we’re constantly out of stock of items, my coworkers are bad about cleaning so things look filthy, and corners are constantly cut overall. I try to make things better but most of these issues aren’t things I can fix. If my manager didn’t order ingredients, I simply can’t sell them. Some days, I open and find so much mess, indicating the restaurant was dirty when I was off. Every single day, I find myself apologizing to customers again and again for things that should not be happening.

Lately we’ve been getting really bad reviews and I find it so embarrassing and disheartening that I work at such a dump. At the same time, I can’t quit because I really need the money and I can’t find places as willing to let me work whenever I come back from college so smoothly.

Worst of all, I can feel myself caring less about my job and I don’t want to be one of the reasons for the reviews. I just don’t know what to do. I’m powerless to make this business run professionally.