I'm not your therapist, but are you doing alright? How are things going in life? Do you want to talk about it?
I think a lot of people think that being well-off and successful basically eliminates all of life's worries, and I think that's especially the case in more left-wing circles. It's really not, until you hit that like 10 million net worth mark or so, or are wealthy for reasons other than working. Really the only stressors it removes are the economic stressors, aside from the fear that everything goes to shit if you lose your job.
Moderate wealth from actual work still leaves you alienated from the haute bourgeoisie, while simultaneously alienating you from the rest of the proletariat. Your only option is to bump elbows with the petite bourgeoisie who won't relate to the issues you have, which is still alienating. Everyone above you on the capitalism tower is punching down, and everyone below you is punching up, so it's a weird position to be getting punched from both directions.
The great unifier is that everyone has the same non-economic issues, but the divider is now that nobody wants to hear them. I feel ya there. DM me if you wanna have a chat about this or vent!
I'm not sure if I'm experiencing a zen-like detachment from desire, or if I'm just depressed.
like i am in brazil, feels like the fucking pandemic will never end, and i am so tired all the time
Maybe Lula will be able to handle it better? It looks like Brazil will :vote: hard enough.
like yeah we just need to wait the rest this year and then the next one is the election and he would be president by the start of 2023 which is so long
It sucks. Nowhere seems to be handling this well, and the imperial core is fucking everyone else over on vaccines for profits. This shit is fucked.
like weirdly we might be okay with the vaccines like later this year as we there is a brazilian vaccine, which has been reported as cheaper and can be made with stuff that we have on the country but it is still on the whole analyses and approval part but yeah it is not great and it is so dumb because the longer the vaccines are kept the more likely the virus is of evolving and making the whole vaccine stockpile pointless
Exactly, it's such a fucking nightmare. Delaying is going to make vaccines pointless. They need to get this shit out and in arms, and make non-injection based vaccines available quickly too for those people that aren't eligible for injected vaccines.
Things are slowly looking up.
I finally have the urge to make lifestyle changes after years of not wanting to and not knowing WHY I didn't want to. Realizing you have needs that have gone unfulfilled for a good chunk of your life is weird. Seeing and connecting with people and not just being around my family like I've been for the last year is letting me rethink things, though. Socializing so far is way less stressful than just existing at home.
Like others, I'm pretty lonely. I want to have people in my life, and I feel like I've grown distant to all but a few of the people I knew in school. I've seen people, but nobody I was in school with before COVID. That's probably the weirdest part for me.
I think everyone's grown pretty distant, and people are gonna have to figure out how to make friends as an adult. It's uh. Kind of a nightmare to start from scratch on that thing, but as someone who's always been drifting from one friend group to the next, I think it'll at least mean that I'm able to embed more closely with some people.
Stuck in parent's basement. Not exactly got any plan for life. I need to get a job or go back to school or do something with my life but honestly I just don't know. I haven't had a real job in almost 2 years now but I'm going to claw my eyes out if I have to sit about my room accomplishing nothing with my life
Other than that, pretty alright
I think it's important to ask yourself if you want to go back to school or get a job. It's totally alright to just... not. There are definitely other things you can do to not have to just sit about and do nothing. Exercise, reading, and volunteering are all great options. You can even take a while to go volunteer abroad with various programs, depending on your nation of origin. Getting a TEFL or other language's equivalent online is also pretty easy, and teach English if that's your vibe. There are also things like A+ Certification courses to get you into IT, or union apprenticeship programs for trades. There are tons of options out there as long as you have the motivation.
No, I certainly want to go back out there and actually do something with my time. Having your labor be exploited by a capitalist sucks but actually having something to get up and do everyday is just so helpful to my mental state. I never really considered teaching english as I don't speak any other languages than English so I would have to teach myself my own second language in order to do that but teaching seemed like something I could do.
It's not so much not having the opportunity it's more just the lack of drive. Everytime I try and think about what I COULD do I just freeze up and anytime I try thinking about a longer term goal like going to culinary school for a bit to get some proper kitchen experience and training, which is a job I actually quite enjoy, I just keep thinking "Man, at the rate the world is going, you're going to be spending the 2040s hunting rats in a long abandoned Walmart for subsistence. What could you possibly do right now that's going to change any of that?"
Obviously that's an extremely toxic line of thinking and sitting in your room playing Yakuza and watching old cartoons all day isn't exactly survival training, but this thought process is frustratingly pervasive and I'm struggling to get out of it
Most TEFL or sub-TEFL teaching programs don't actually require that you speak any languages other than English. The classes operate on that "we only speak English in this room" type vibe, though immersion is the easiest way to learn another language, so it's usually pretty much inevitable that you'll pick up some of the local language.
I totally get the walmart rat farmer thing, though. I'm absolutely the same way. Nothing really matters to me in the medium term except establishing myself and figuring out ways to survive. Motivation is a nightmare, for sure. Having said that, cooking skills and experience would be extremely valuable in that scenario, so I definitely recommend trying that route!
Still, I really don't need to speak ANY other language to teach English to a non-speaker? I feel like actually speaking their native tongue to explain some of the very frustrating and minute details of English would be a lot more helpful to them than continuing in a language they only partially understand. That, and I feel like "I don't speak the language or have any relevant experience on my resume" would exactly go over well in the interview process
These aren't like the IELTS prep classes I took as a kid. It's an English class to improve comprehension and understanding for like middle school or high school students that have been learning English since kindergarten, much like the English classes you would have taken in school as a native speaker. They're really not looking for a ton of teaching experience either, as there are like 2 billion or more people trying to learn and master English. These programs will hire just about anyone with a high school diploma and a pulse, send you off with a plane ticket, and put you in housing. Turns out there aren't a ton of native English speakers from the Anglosphere that are willing and eager to pick up their life and move to Vietnam or Morocco for $12,000 per year, plus housing. If you don't have a lot going on, you absolutely can just go do it, for real, and it's a great way to learn the language of the land yourself.
Welp. I can't say I have a ton else really going on for me right now. Maybe flinging myself to some remote corner of the planet for 2 years to teach English isn't the most horrendous idea. What kind of program would I even need to sign up for to do this?
It depends on which country you're in at the start, but generally just making a web search for something like, "Teach english in [country] with no degree" will get you started in the right direction. Japan and South Korea seem like really cool options, but they're super flooded with applicants trying to live the weeb life or seeking certain cultural aspects that only really exist in anime or hentai, the huge applicant pool means those two usually only accept people with at least a bachelors degree in something vaguely relevant, the pay isn't much better than it is in other countries so it doesn't keep up with the higher cost of living, and you're not exactly gonna get to live it up and see all the sights. You still work a job 5 days a week every week, so it's really not a vacation.
I was considering doing this pretty heavily while debating whether or not I wanted to actually do grad school, and a friend who did actually teach English in Japan for 4 years after getting his Bachelor's in Japanese talked me out of it.
Yeah I figured not Japan. I don't care how much it pays, if I take that job it will brand me as a Weeb for the rest of my life. I personally don't have much of a preference, honestly. If they need some random white guy with no credentials other than "Speaks a language" to put in some far off land for a bit of pay and board then sure, I'm down. What countries do you know that really need someone? If I had to choose I'd probably go for Mongolia but I'm open to about anything
Generally, these programs are super popular in Southeast Asia and fairly popular in Latin America and Africa. Cambodia, for example, really needs teachers and is often overlooked in favour of Thailand and Vietnam, and won't generally even ask for like a TEFL or TESOL certification.
Other countries that will want a TEFL (which is pretty easy, it's like a 120 hour course usually taken online. You can literally do it in like a month or two online for a couple hundred bucks and then take the test. I'm sure there are free test prep courses on youtube or pirate sites) would be Costa Rica, Argentina, Morocco, or Vietnam, and others.
The CELTA is a bit more intensive, and is a great training program, which will have you learning and teaching abroad right away. You'll usually take the course and simultaneously log hours teaching classes in countries like Poland, Spain, Hungary, France, or China, and then be able to get a much higher paying English teaching job, more like $20-25k/yr in countries that would pay like $10-12k for a teacher with a TEFL. Apparently there are now also some CELTA courses online, as well. It's generally a pretty sick deal.
Hmmm, Cambodia sounds nice. I could see myself living there for a year or 2 trying to teach English. Can't say I have much around me holding me down here right now. Thank you, Ms. Goldman!
Dr. Goldman, but I'll let it slide this time. :quokka-smile:
A CELTA course generally costs a couple of grand, but will open up a ton of doors if that's what you want to do, and often includes things like crash course lessons in the language of the area in which you take them.
I'm okay, nothing has happened recently to cause me any stress but I'm still always stressed lol. I've been trying to process trauma on my own because I'm not allowed to go to therapy but it's hard when I'm still living with my abusers :( I'm always stressed to a certain extent because of this and it won't go away until I can move out, cut contact, and go to therapy :/
I feel ya, I basically did the same thing over the past year and a half or so, and I probably wasn't ready for it. I moved to a middle of nowhere cheap af place and work remotely for a company in a place with a higher cost of living, so the pay's alright. Most of the money's going towards getting established and paying off debt incurred thanks to abuse.
Bailing on everything basically as soon as I got my Ph. D, even though I wasn't financially ready was simultaneously the worst and best thing I've ever done.
I'm proud of you for doing that and making it this far! And yeah getting my degree will greatly improve my life because I can get a well paying job after. Kinda hate college though
It absolutely fucking sucks, for sure, but it's really the only path to any semblance of independence in the imperial core these days. I hope you'll be able to make it through and that things will get better!
not great.
im trying to finish a draft of one of my dissertation chapters, which has been a mega struggle over the last year, and i feel that if i dont show something substantive, my department is going to kick me out. I've been working on my disseratation for a year and I dont have a solid draft of a single chapter... I have so many chunks and pieces but i have no motivation. I dont want to do academia, and i hate my discipline for the most part, so Im just totally lost with it. but I hate the idea of not finishing...
I feel ya. The sunk cost issue really fucked over a lot of my friends in academia that really just didn't want to be there. I say issue rather than fallacy due to the spectre of loans shadowing over you for the rest of forever. My advice is that you can absolutely just hand in some very poorly edited, partly incomplete work, as long as it shows you're still working on it, and have a frank discussion with your advisor or whomever your contact is on it, explaining that it's been a struggle, and if you want, why it's been a struggle. I totally get the hating your discipline thing, tho.
yeah the sunk cost is miserable. if i had known the pandemic was gonna hit and fuck up so much, i absolutely would have bounced. I just hate that the universities are just like 'nah it's fine, you're totally good to keep going like normal'.
thankfully my only debt comes from undergrad, since I got into a funded phd, even though they cut my funding last year (LOL). So im teaching on the side, as well as trying to write and keep my head above water. In my last email to my advisor I was pretty straightfoward that i was bugging, and I set a date to send in this chapter draft (mondayish) so he could see it.
God yeah, they're just pretending that everything is fine so they can keep the cash a-rolling and the profits a-climbing. It's such a fucking nightmare. Nobody can focus on this shit, remote teaching and learning is fucking impossible. I took a remote history class in undergrad and I could not fucking focus on it at all, especially since there were no lectures or anything. We'd just get a notification on a website every day telling us to read some shit, and then write about it. Zero interaction, just a single paragraph post daily from a professor in the process of moving house to another state so she wasn't even available to talk. At least it's a bit better now with zoom and stuff, but like... hell, how do people learn anything in online school? Do they just not?
I mean, there's not a lot to do with a self-imposed deadline or even much advice to give without sounding like Nike or Shia Laboeuf; "Just do it." Honestly, I'd say just sorta write whatever, as long as it meets the length needed, fits the style guide, and more or less stays on topic. If it's rambly and nonsensical, it really doesn't matter. I've seen so many dissertations that drone on or just read like the ravings of a madman for a chapter or two, it's wild.
Yea, that sounds vaguely like like most of my club or bar experiences when I was freshly 18. Find a woman at least 30 that looks like she goes for girls, hit on her a bunch, half the time her boyfriend shows up, the rest of the time... uhhh... :volcel-vanguard:
I am not proud of myself.
I'm gonna need you to be more specific. What kind of emo we talking about? You said you were dancing so I'm guessing it wasn't Cap'n Jazz.
ive become disgusted with facial hair so i'm retwinking myself for the summer
i'm excited to have creative freedom on my face again, i'm gonna try to put together a comedia dell'arte 'lover' ensemble as a long term aesthetic goal
| comedia dell’arte ‘lover’ ensemble
No masks, big wigs, lots of makeup, and you change clothes 3-4 times per day? Cool!
In some parts, eh.
But I’m proud of my friends, many of them are working their way towards SOMETHING. I’ve cut off so many over the years because they just kinda drifted about, falling into things. Most of them were high school friends, so good riddance really.
Right now a small fire is getting reignited for something I used to care so much about, and frankly it’s goddamn great to feel that. My previous pursuit was kind of a failure because I didnt get proper mentorship for much of it, but those few moments I did stuck with me so well and I’m getting to pass that on.
I’ve booked some photography gigs in the summer, really excited about that, because nerves, stress, and panic kept me from moving forward with that. Real excited to now take my vocation seriously.
About the last thing to talk about is romance, which not a lot to talk about because i wasnt much of an active dater before covid. It’s been longer since I’ve been out of a relationship than i’ve been in my last one by about 2 years. I’ve got a lot of what I wanted changed since then, and I’m in a far better place, so it’s time I get back out there. I look back on dates and wonder “so was this date a flop cause I’m demi, or because of depression?” cause I’ve been with a date who told me she couldnt tell I was into her for the first hour or so (i was, i just wasnt touching her)
Reading back that just feels like I’m caught up on some anxiety.
Having motivation and some forward momentum in something you care about is so freakin' good!
Ultimately i have to remember that a part of what I’m reconnecting with has a social element to it. Maybe that’s a part of what i miss and was missing?
Fuck, dude. I'm sorry. That sucks super bad. Back on the horse, or are you gonna take a sec to collect yourself?
Pretty alright. Booked a week off of work so that's good. Still can't go anywhere, but it's nice to just relax with the gf
This week drained me of all my social interaction energy but at least the weekend has brought my spirits back up. Wish I could talk to my coworkers about stuff since they're nice people but I'm so but I just can't relate or not feel awkward all the time. Kinda just waiting for something in to happen to me that will give my life some direction. Or not :shrug-outta-hecks:
Relate to people here though so I'm sending out good vibes :meow-fiesta:
My weekends are on Wednesday and Thursday. It's fuckin' wack. It feels so weird being on such a radically different schedule from everyone else, I kinda understand why the nepreryvka week system was such a nightmare for people in the Soviet Union. Not that I really have any friends I'm missing out on interacting with.
Good vibes are good!
