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    1. Ask Tildes: Job security - does it exist, how to deal with lack of, how to process being fired / unemployment

      Posting for a friend My company just acquired another company, and there is restructuring. A good work friend was let go today with no warning. She had been talking about the upcoming office...

      Posting for a friend

      My company just acquired another company, and there is restructuring. A good work friend was let go today with no warning. She had been talking about the upcoming office gathering next month, and in the afternoon I got the notice to cut off her security access. I haven't spoken to her yet, her phone has been turned off. I'm still in the office processing this....this....sudden and unacceptable throwing away of a human being. I don't care what they say about how this is necessary for success and how the rest of us are safe and whatever. It doesn't make me feel better even if they tell me she'd been failing PIP or whatever (not what they said but just an example). How are we supposed to live in a society where money absolutely rules everything, where we must pay crazy amounts of money to live close to work, often making 25-30+ year mortgage commitments, when the company has no such commitments to us?

      How do you cope with job security?

      I have a lot of angry words and cynicism but that's probably not helpful for my friend right now.

      12 votes
    2. Growing a beard. Tips and tricks, please!

      A huge thank you to everyone who responded to my hair thinning post. Here’s where I landed: Minoxidil is toxic to dogs and I’ve got a little fur buddy, and finasteride prevents me from donating...

      A huge thank you to everyone who responded to my hair thinning post.

      Here’s where I landed:

      Minoxidil is toxic to dogs and I’ve got a little fur buddy, and finasteride prevents me from donating blood and platelets, and that’s a new thing for me that I don’t want to give up. So, bald it is! I plan on shaving my head this coming summer.

      In the eventual absence of hair on my head though, I’d like to grow more on my face and keep it longer — something that’ll require actual grooming and upkeep. I’ve had a beard for a long time now, but I keep it quite short.

      So, what are all of my do’s and don’ts/tips and tricks for growing (and maintaining) a glorious beard?

      Also, I want this to be beneficial to ANYONE looking for beard info, so feel free to give short beard tips too.

      20 votes
    3. What things do you have are surprisingly good / handy?

      As I write this, I’m using a $10 foot massager from Temu that my wife bought. I thought it was totally stupid but it gets nightly use. We lie on the couch and just let it run. Edit2: it looks like...

      As I write this, I’m using a $10 foot massager from Temu that my wife bought. I thought it was totally stupid but it gets nightly use. We lie on the couch and just let it run.

      Edit2: it looks like the LINGTENG one on Amazon - probably white labeled from same factory, nothing special about it but we like the simplicity.

      What has anyone else found surprisingly useful?

      Edit -

      Here are some things that came in mind as I was walking around:

      • Different type of mason jar lids from masontops for sprouting, cold press coffee, pouring spout for watering plants, etc.
      • ifixit kit - originally used for phone fixing now used for prying random stuff - the Ifixit jimmy is really useful, and it’s great to have all tools in one place
      • Shoegoo - originally used for shoe fixing now used for fixing bike parts - time to invest in a glue gun
      • YouTube premium - I originally got a family plan so that my mom wouldn’t watch so many ads, but now it’s an integral part of my passive learning system - languages, guitar, sports, etc.
      • hydrogen peroxide - I got it for wound disinfecting but it has only ever been used as a stain remover.
      • cheap Muji mini umbrella - way more used than my fancy Davek
      60 votes
    4. My hair is thinning. Tips and tricks, please!

      Every time I get a haircut, my barber hands me a small hand mirror so that I can bounce an image off the wall mirror and see the back of my head. My hair is noticeably thinner in the back each...

      Every time I get a haircut, my barber hands me a small hand mirror so that I can bounce an image off the wall mirror and see the back of my head. My hair is noticeably thinner in the back each time.

      I recently was at a function and saw pictures of me standing around, some of which included the back of my head. The thinning is clearly starting to stand out in a bad way.

      I feel like I’ve got two options:

      1. Do something to try to save my hair (medication?).
      2. Shave my head and try to rock a bald look.

      I’m open to tips, tricks, and guidance on either of these (or options I’m not aware of).

      I’m not very attached to my hair, so this isn’t a super emotional thing for me. I’m also not scared of going bald since, as a gay guy, I’m well aware of how compelling a bald + beard look can be on some men (my beard isn’t thinning at all, thankfully).

      There’s still a question of whether it would look good for me specifically though. Also I don’t know if I’m ready to give up on my hair just yet?

      One advantage I do have is summers off (I’m a teacher), so I’m going to be able to do a bald test run in a few months without too much risk. If it turns out that I’m a complete disaster without hair, I’ll just stay home and let it grow back out.

      Anyway, I’m open to any and all thoughts on balding, hair loss, hair loss prevention, etc. Tell me your own experiences and what decisions you made. Let me know the tricks of the trade.

      31 votes
    5. Moving to the other side of the Earth

      The company I work for just announced they want to open a new office abroad, in Australia to be specific. We’re based in Denmark, and they’re hoping to have one person from here moving there,...

      The company I work for just announced they want to open a new office abroad, in Australia to be specific. We’re based in Denmark, and they’re hoping to have one person from here moving there, working full time.
      We already have an office in the US, so it’s not an entirely new thing for us to open an office abroad.
      However, I’m really thinking about letting the company know that I would like to go, and I think there is a pretty good chance that they would let me. My wife is open to the idea too. We have one child (she would be just over 3 when we would have to move), so it’s really good timing too…

      Have any of you tried something like this? What was your experience like?

      31 votes
    6. Need a haircut (a good one)

      I posted recently about needing a better job—well, if one has an interview for a better job (a much better job, hopefully), one needs to look the part. In the greater ATL area, two questions: I've...

      I posted recently about needing a better job—well, if one has an interview for a better job (a much better job, hopefully), one needs to look the part. In the greater ATL area, two questions:

      • I've gotten a variety of haircuts, from barbershops to salon-type places to Great Clips to at home with a Wahl, but they've topped out around 20 bucks. How do I find a really good haircut/face clean-up (brows etc) place? I don't want to just waltz in somewhere & end up looking ridiculous, but I don't even know where to start. It doesn't help that I have a kind of "weird" type of hair, where it's curly and kind of wiry, ethnically mediterranean/middle eastern, so if I get a regular clippers haircut it usually ends up looking chopped off.

      • I also need a good suit, in toto; I have dress clothes but def. don't want to blow this one. National finance, I'm seeing business casual so suit/tie/shirt/shoes, nice enough to be unnoticeable is my goal. I have no idea how much a suit at that point would cost, but other than going to Brooks Brothers or Joseph A Banks I have no idea what the best approach would be (are those even in the same range lol)

      Thanks again you all

      Edit: i am a dude, sry

      15 votes
    7. How to best navigate a career change, from a Canadian who was teaching mathematics internationally to ???

      tl;dr it seems that my career in international teaching (mainly mathematics) is ending after nearly a decade, and I am struggling to understand how to find jobs/what to change careers to I’ll...

      tl;dr it seems that my career in international teaching (mainly mathematics) is ending after nearly a decade, and I am struggling to understand how to find jobs/what to change careers to

      I’ll apologize up front if the below is hard to follow. I get fairly emotional in private while talking about this situation as a whole, but I have tried to edit it as well as I can for clarity while not being too verbose (though would be happy to clarify questions in the comments).

      I have been teaching internationally at Canadian international schools in Shanghai, South Korea, and the Hong Kong region for nearly a decade. This past September, I was brought into a meeting being told that I was being non-renewed (my teaching contract would not be renewed for the 2025/2026 academic school year). The reasons were…not at all related to performance. The main factor was that I took an interview in February 2024, after I signalled intent that I would like to stay at my current position, but before I had a signed contract from the school. I told someone I felt I could trust in leadership because the interview went well, and the way references work for safeguarding in this field I was under the impression they may get a call, and I did want to give the school a heads-up so that if I were to get an offer and leave they would have a good amount of time to get a replacement (visas and stuff can take a while, but they would have had plenty of time). The person in leadership said that me leaving would be a large loss for the school, but promised me they would keep the conversation confidential.

      Which was a lie, I guess. They then told their superiors the next day. It almost got me fired on the spot, but since I had a mountain of evidence of being their top performing teacher over piles of data from 2016, at the time I was able to avoid that, and I was told that this would be put behind us and we could move forward.

      Which was…also a lie. I knew that this may be an outcome but then the school was signalling to me that there was going to be room for me to move up the ladder. Naive of me to believe it probably, and has honestly taught me a lot about trusting leadership at any organizations (which may sound bitter, but I literally debated telling anyone in case this was going to be the outcome only to be proven right when I went against my gut).

      The second main reason was the amount of sick days I used…when I got pneumonia and almost got hospitalized last academic year. Honestly, I work at a place with incredibly toxic leadership. Last year, a friend of mine was non-renewed when she was struggling at work because her mom passed away. Instead of supporting her, they took her grief and showed her the door. I could go on for a while, but this post is already getting lengthy. Many of us stayed in our positions simply due to economic imperative.

      I had multiple colleagues try to save my job over the past few months (buddies at best, but mostly not even people I hang out with) to no avail. For those unfamiliar with the teaching field, to have teachers speak out instead of being agreeable with whatever is going on is incredibly rare. If there has been one silver lining it has been the outpour of support from basically my entire collegiate base that is showing evidence that I am a good teacher, or at least likable. I am also at least leaving with a stack of glowing references from everyone else over a decade-long career.

      But the international teaching job market has changed significantly. I have always been hired on a new contract before Christmas, and this year I have been hearing next to nothing. I did hear from some “Tier 1 / Elite” level schools, with one interview process still ongoing, so I am confident that the problem was not necessarily my resume getting noticed. However, every time I have been passed over it was the same reasons of not having experience with a certain curriculum (country, IB, AP, whatever) or that I lost to some with a Bachelor’s or Masters that was specific to the subject area. I was originally humanities trained, with a Bachelor of Education, but got to teach Math in my first job and loved it so much I kept doing it. I was also able to teach Computer Science and Physical Education over my career, but I was really recently just leaning in to being a good Math teacher. Sometimes being passed over is due to visa requirements in certain countries (though this is rare), but schools also just seem to be unwilling to train in their curriculum/framework now. Now that the market is seemingly flooded, many pathways have been lost to me. As we enter February, job postings will likely dry up based on what I observed from the market last year. The decline in postings has already been occurring comparing January to the few months before.

      While I am not fully giving up, it has left me seriously thinking about how worth it is to stay in this field? If good performance never really seems rewarded, and your fate can be left up to a person that can be vindictive, perhaps moving to a different field and learning the politics and ways to succeed may be the better move. After a decade of experience in teaching, I can’t seemingly maintain my current compensation package without getting specific experience, so it seems it may be foolish to remain on this path. To do so, would mean going to a smaller school, in an undesirable location, away from the relationships and life I have built. If it means heading back to entry level, is it worth investing more into this career? I could get a Masters in Mathematics Education, but then does it matter? I take a year off, try to apply again (in which there may not even be openings), but perhaps now I still lose to someone with specific curricular experience. It seems like a treadmill and race I would not be able to keep up with. Due to the way international teaching works there is very limited movement, and it’s not like other careers where hiring and resignations are more fluid throughout the year (and that you can look and take interviews privately without fear of reprisal, unlike this career apparently).

      The problem with a career change, as I see it, is I am a single, mid-30’s dude, with all the social expectations of providing for myself and others that come with that. If this career is ending, I need to make a switch with some combination of being able to learn fast and leveraging my past experience and skill set and try to make $100,000 USD per year after a few years of just grinding or whatever. Before I entered teaching I took a year or two off after high school and worked with the Canadian Department of National Defence as a civilian, and then a shipping company while I was in University (and at the shipping company I overhauled the branch’s financial reporting and tracking system which then got rolled out nationwide - I am pretty proud of doing that at 21 with literally no experience). Not against working hard or doing whatever I need to do. I currently make $95,000 net which is kind of how I come up with this number. It’s the number I have come up with considering retirement, probably having to take care of my parents, and not just surviving. I would really like to work remote or from home, though understand I may have to work towards earning that privilege.

      Over the past two years, I finished the two courses from Google/Coursera on Project Management and Data Analytics out of sheer curiosity. Honestly, I think I lean more towards the former rather than the latter, and have experience over my career that I could repurpose into work artifacts (I have been in charge of learning management system rollouts, training, curriculum overhauls, etc. that I could probably move into a Project Management context). I could also get my CAPM, though Pearson/PMI won’t let me write the exam online from my current location.

      One hard part is that my life is in Hong Kong. My friends, relationships, all of that. I am trying to figure out a way to stay here as well, so that I am not socially isolated. Alternatively, placing myself in a position/career/company that could allow me to get back in short order. There is really nothing left for me back in Canada. I think that has been the most difficult thing about this, that I have cried about in the times I can get to myself.

      The other hard part is that I have not looked for a job outside of international teaching in nearly a decade, and I have absolutely no idea how it works for other careers and fields. I know LinkedIn exists, and have tried to update mine. But I really do just need…guidance on what could be a best potential route if there is anyone that could provide something. I found when searching stuff online that most advice was just…vague.

      If you made it through reading this far, thank you for taking the time. I hope my writing is coming across reasonably well. Writing this all at five in the morning after I was unable to sleep again. I understand that I will likely have to work hard to get to the level I am currently at again, and do feel confident in my ability to learn (my entire career has been taking something I don’t know, learning it, teaching it to others/training, and getting results).

      19 votes
    8. Visitor visa for staying in Canada while waiting for spousal visa?

      My sister is marrying a Canadian this year and wants to move to Canada very soon for lots of reasons. Usually, US citizens don't need a visa or even an eTA to enter and stay in Canada. The...

      My sister is marrying a Canadian this year and wants to move to Canada very soon for lots of reasons. Usually, US citizens don't need a visa or even an eTA to enter and stay in Canada. The visa-free period is 6 months, but my sister is in a situation where she might need to be able to stay longer until she can get proper residence through a spousal visa, since the processing time for those currently sits at 10 months. Moving back temporarily is not an option, neither is waiting to move. As I understand it, you can apply to extend visitor visas, but that might not be the case for visa-free stays? We genuinely don't know where to get started looking.

      Has anyone here done this, or been in a similar situation? Anyone who's immigrated through marriage and have had to figure out their stay like this, especially where it's not quite gone according to plan? Any and all suggestions and stories are welcome, we're all just 20-somethings navigating tremendous life changes without guard rails.

      10 votes
    9. I need to be making $90,000

      So I've hit on this a bit before here, but it's been a while—I stopped looking for jobs last summer & spent the rest of 2024 getting some things sorted in my own head about what I actually wanted...

      So I've hit on this a bit before here, but it's been a while—I stopped looking for jobs last summer & spent the rest of 2024 getting some things sorted in my own head about what I actually wanted to be doing, what I valued, and why I wanted to change anything in the first place. I love my job, not just because it's remote but honestly mostly because it's remote, but it does not pay enough & may not for a long time, so I have sort of collected together online weekend/evening/contractor part-time gigs on top, which altogether come out to around 90k. After all my soul-searching (& getting on the millenial ADHD meds train, whew), I'd reeeeally love to focus all of that into one job instead, as the downfall of the gig economy approach is not just the time investment required, it's that there's no opportunity for advancement—if I could keep one or two side hustles going, great, but that way I'd be free to let them go as needed as well, which would be a huge relief.

      So that's the source for my very specific number; I would of course take more money lol.

      I have experience in: adult training/instruction, CRM management, writing/editing, process analysis/efficiency/optimization, video/content creation (doesn't really fit with the rest but my resume is kind of nuts unfortunately)

      I am really good at: soft skills/written & verbal communication, IT support, learning new things real quick but also very thoroughly & being able to teach them to others, making things work better/faster

      I have degrees in: library science/research, education (no comp sci : / feel like that was my big mistake career path-wise, I've tried some online options more recently & am currently making headway with claude as a coding partner lol).

      The real sticking point is I am currently remote & would have to make way more than 90k to be willing to go back to an office every day. My current job was an out-of-left-field career move that I wouldn't have even guessed existed, so I am open to literally any suggestions.

      29 votes
    10. Is this the ennui all the kids are talking about? Angst? What's wrong with me.

      I've tried before to get input on this, but online it doesn't go anywhere and IRL people don't seem to understand. Thought about putting it in the /~finance area, but I don't know that it's really...

      I've tried before to get input on this, but online it doesn't go anywhere and IRL people don't seem to understand. Thought about putting it in the /~finance area, but I don't know that it's really a finance issue, plus things there seem to be wider-scale financial in focus. And there's no /~advice page, so here it is:

      I feel like I should be making more money lol. Now immediately, that sounds greedy or either capitalistic/anticapitalistic, depending—I know it does, but hear me out. I have a great job that pays ok but not great, and tons of free time; in my mind, and if I'm being honest in my field, chasing a 5% raise is low ROI and low likelihood of even happening. There is little room for vertical movement, but enough security that it seems crazy to make any changes. Post-college, I have had a pretty varied career background, I am very good at editing, research, training, tech, etc. but I am not an "idea person" and I don't have a lot of marketability or self-promotion ability, it seems like (also no coding abilities, which is always a suggestion; I've tried, believe me, but my brain won't do it). I'd rather edit your book than write one of my own, not because I'm afraid of rejection or can't commit to doing something/run out of steam, but because the steam just isn't there.

      I don't feel the need to change careers, but I am also feeling super unfulfilled. I've worked on doing things to try and fill that gap, hobbies/other pursuits/etc, but I am haunted by the fact that I am using such a small part of my bandwidth, when it seems like I could be outputting at 2x or 3x and earning similarly. I've applied for contract work, freelance, all that stuff, but it is spotty pay at best—what I want, short of a medieval patron/wealthy benefactor, is a second job I could do on top of this one. Which leads me to side-hustle-type rabbit holes on starting an Etsy shop/a YouTube channel/a Patreon page. But when it comes down to it, I don't actually feel any passion about doing any of those things, and I can't get a narrow enough niche figured out to even come up with a potential audience. I've avoided specializing because I wanted to do all kinds of things, and now I've done that, and I feel like maybe it was a mistake. I just want to have the resources available to do what I want. Bills are paid, life is good, but I feel like I am spinning my wheels: even writing this out is like a roller coaster of feeling shame that I'm not satisfied or that I'm ungrateful, then being frustrated I can't make it happen the way I want, on my own.

      Because see, I didn't say I deserve more money; I want the opportunity to earn more money. There are a ton of things I would be perfectly happy doing for a living, or for a second job. And more money might not even help—if I was a trust fund baby I be in a similar situation. But what the fuck should I be doing then? I guess what I really want is for someone to say "Hey, I need this job done, I'll give you $XXk a year to do it" like it's 1980, and then I know I am serving a purpose? And I wouldn't feel guilty about time left over, because the job is Done. But part of me is afraid that, even if that somehow magically materialized, I would feel the exact same way I do now.

      so what do tilderinos?

      29 votes
    11. Any Tildeans who have lived in China or Russia and the West? What were the differences in the daily lives of average people?

      edit: It's been a surprisingly active thread in a way I hadn't expected. Thank you everyone for the light debate, and I'm sorry if any of this was a source of discomfort. The internet has...

      edit: It's been a surprisingly active thread in a way I hadn't expected. Thank you everyone for the light debate, and I'm sorry if any of this was a source of discomfort. The internet has historically been a safe place to find out things that would be difficult to ask in person even if you know who to ask, and I appreciate the fact-checking, reality-checking, what-have-you that comes with that.


      Things like:

      • What things felt free to do and not free to do? Was that a quality of law or society? (e.g., freedom of speech, gay relationships, zoning, running a business, jaywalking, etc.)
      • Trust or reliability in government
      • Educational quality
      • Relationship to the media
      • What luxuries people tended to have (e.g. modern imported gaming consoles, domestically produced products, number of cars, etc.)

      Posting from America here. As the great power politics seems to have heated up these past 3-10 years, it feels like the environment has become more polarized as well. Eventually I started to ask myself what exactly I was supporting or opposing philosophically, in wanting my country to have the largest influence. The measures I came up with were not things that my own country did well on, and often felt like things I couldn't get the most accurate picture on without Russian or Chinese language acquisition. I happened upon a BBC article about new Chinese graduates I guess going through what millennials did in 2008, and found the general similarity of it interesting.

      67 votes
    12. Looking for some advice on a cat food dispenser

      I have a simple gravity fed cat food dispenser that is great but it needs a little help. No matter what gravity feed dispenser I use it never keeps up. My cat has food out 24/7 and he regulates...

      I have a simple gravity fed cat food dispenser that is great but it needs a little help. No matter what gravity feed dispenser I use it never keeps up. My cat has food out 24/7 and he regulates his food on his own.

      I 3d printed a new dispenser in hopes it would solve the food falling out constantly all day, but it's not working as I expected.

      So what I'm hoping to do is make a simple vibrating device that will help the food fall out constantly all day long. Maybe a raspberry pi that has a cell phone vibration fob thing that will run a routine? I don't know. I'm having a really hard time finding examples of this. Does anyone have something to reference?

      Also open to ideas on non-mechanical feeders that work well, or very simple battery operated options.

      Thanks!

      19 votes
    13. Looking for some insight / advice on dog behavior

      I visited my in-laws over the holiday break. They have 2 border collies (and really shouldn't but that's a whole nother other...). Both border collies absolutely lose it barking and aggressively...

      I visited my in-laws over the holiday break. They have 2 border collies (and really shouldn't but that's a whole nother other...). Both border collies absolutely lose it barking and aggressively posturing when anyone but MIL/FIL enter a room they are in, UNLESS MIL/FIL are not home. Then they can't be bothered to even sit up from where they are napping.

      I find this behavior really confusing. It appears the dogs are ?protecting? my in-laws, and that in-laws have somehow unwittingly trained them to do so?

      After they're done barking they're affectionate and playful. I'd love to find a way to encourage the dogs to skip straight to the petting/play time.

      Thoughts? Advice?

      thanks in advance Tildes!

      10 votes
    14. Is it just me or has advertising lost the plot entirely?

      If you know me you probably know I hate advertising with a passion. I have blocked ads on my computer but I have limited control on my TV and phone when it comes to YouTube advertisements. And the...

      If you know me you probably know I hate advertising with a passion. I have blocked ads on my computer but I have limited control on my TV and phone when it comes to YouTube advertisements. And the other day I got this incredibly bizarre ad.

      I only speak the tiny amount of Spanish I have learned through osmosis, but the phrase they are using is essentially “we’ll eat at home.” The scenario is a familiar one; you’ve got a kid in the car out in town and they see a restaurant they want to go and they ask if they can stop to eat. The parent says no, we’ll eat at home, because there are a lot of reasons why it’s better for them. Home cooked meals are cheaper. They can be higher quality, both in terms of taste and nutrition. They might have food that will go bad soon and so they want to go and eat it first. They don’t want to normalize eating rich unhealthy foods for their kids.

      But this isn’t an ad for groceries or processed food products. This is an ad for DoorDash. A food delivery app. Literally none of the reasons you would want to eat at home apply here. Actually, using DoorDash in this particular situation is dramatically worse, because you are paying more money to get food you could have just picked up on the way only to get a worse version of it because it is no longer freshly prepared and is likely cold.

      I just can’t get over this because it’s so incredibly out of touch with reality. Many people have had to have signed off on this for me to see this ad. What were they thinking? Are they so out of touch with reality that they think this is something that people do? The fact that this is clearly targeting Hispanic Americans makes it even worse. I live in Southern California and about a third of the people I know are Hispanic and all of them would laugh at this. I can’t help but wonder if the teams working on them were full of privileged white guys who are saying “yeah, this is what Mexicans are really like” or if there are also rich Hispanics on board who thinks this is something that people really do.

      But this is just the most egregious example of out of touch advertising. YouTube ads are supposed to be targeted right? But why do I get ads for CRM, ERP, and accounting products when I don’t own a business? Why do I get ads in languages I don’t speak? Why is it that I can report and tell Google that an advertiser is inappropriate or against their terms and still they will show me the ads again?

      And beyond that I am astonished at how many ads I see that exist to mislead you. Almost every time you see something compared or tested there is somthing they aren’t telling you. The most obvious example is Scott toilet paper; they advertise that they have rolls that are significantly longer than their leading competition. But what they neglect to tell you is that their product is single-ply while their competitors are double- or triple-ply. They actually have a very comfortable amount of toilet paper on each roll. Weirdly, all toilet paper is misleading though; what is a “mega roll”, how does it differ from an “ultra roll”, and why is one roll of it somehow equivalent to six of some unspecified other type of roll? In the meanwhile Old Spice is trying to take advantage of balding men like me by telling me that their shampoo increases the volume of hair by however many percent while there is fine print at the bottom saying that it is compared to unwashed hair, meaning their shampoo probably doesn’t do anything the cheapest generic product at the dollar store won’t.

      I know this is basically just a rant, but I can’t be the only one who notices this stuff, am I?

      54 votes
    15. Activities to do out of the house with an elderly relative?

      Hello Tildutes! I have an elderly relative (91) who spends a lot of time alone in her house. I was thinking it would be nice to do an offbeat bonding activity in town somewhere to relax her. I’m...

      Hello Tildutes!

      I have an elderly relative (91) who spends a lot of time alone in her house. I was thinking it would be nice to do an offbeat bonding activity in town somewhere to relax her.

      I’m looking for suggestions on things she might enjoy, ideally something interactive but low-stakes.

      Requirements/notes:

      • Something one can do in a place like Newark, Wilmington, or maybe Philadelphia.
      • She can walk and stand (her cane helps), but not too fast or for too long. She would need to sit.
      • She can see alright with her glasses and can hear you with hearing aids, but not from a distance.
      • She is astute and can follow conversations just fine, thought it can take a moment for her to put together her thoughts.
      • I’d like to get her out of the house—managing her own living space is stressful and she is more relaxed when she does not feel obliged to be hostly.
      • I would like this to be calming or relaxing or refreshing for her. She has some obsessive/compulsive habits and I kind of want her to zen out more. Or just have fun—she’s often worrying.

      Some ideas I had (input/feedback/additional suggestions welcome):

      • Some sort of guided meditative or zen garden-type relaxation thing, but suitable for a kinda tired senior with OCD. I don’t know what to look for exactly. Maybe even something a little New Age. She is nominally Quaker and I would say a good-natured and open-minded person.
      • She mentioned once that her dream job was to be an artist. I was thinking about an abstract painting session at a studio where they provide all the materials. Some way for her to let out her inner Jackson Pollock?
      • I thought about a spa day. Do they have specialists who work with seniors? She has some aches and pains but is obviously fragile and extremely unused to being “treated.” She might have to overcome some… guilt (?) for being attended to.
      • Some sort of guided cultural experience—but maybe more engaging than walking around a museum? She is well-traveled and remains interested in world cultures. She used to be a teacher of English and French, spent a considerable amount of time volunteering in Mexico (before it was developed), and seems to often appreciate learning about cultural things on Wikipedia or in magazines.
      • She seems to be quite pleased with animals, at least cats and dogs. I considered going to a cat cafe but, having been in those before, I know the animals are not always accessible. Are puppy cafes a thing? Indoor petting zoos?

      In contrast it would be unsuitable for us to play any sort of competitive game, or to do something requiring a lot of physical strength or dexterity, or anything that would be emotionally overwhelming.

      If you have experiences of activities or programs that might be fulfilling to my relative, I would love to hear them!

      My goal is mostly just for her to have a nice time for that day. If I can get her to be more relaxed generally, that’s great too.

      Thank you!

      19 votes
    16. Horses, I didn't understand them and now I do

      I didn't "get" the horse thing Like some (most?) people, I looked at horse people and wondered "why". My Mum is a horse person, she'd rave about how much she loved her horse, but the words never...

      I didn't "get" the horse thing

      Like some (most?) people, I looked at horse people and wondered "why". My Mum is a horse person, she'd rave about how much she loved her horse, but the words never really meant much to me. I always empathised with my Dad who, like me, found things like motorbikes and tractors more interesting and fun.
      I thought, why would you want to invest time, energy and money into this 500+ kg animal which, as far as I could tell, didn't do much other than stand completely still all day and eat grass?
      And then there's the actual riding, horses are animals, they are famous for getting scared of things such as a puddle, a plastic bag and the wind. Why would I not just use a reliable thing like a bike or car and master that? I honestly couldn't think of anything worse than wanting to go on a trek somewhere and your dumbass horse going "nah I don't like that brush" and you having to take a detour. It sounds frustrating!

      So I tried horse riding

      I started dating someone who was also a horse person, my Mum is a horse person and I felt like I was both missing something and also maybe it would be good for my relationship. So I thought, fuck it, why not let's give it a go. A new hobby is always a good thing.
      My initial thoughts were luke warm. It was difficult as hell, which probably was the main thing that kept my interest. I feel confident getting on any machine and learning the controls in an afternoon, but a horse was like learning to drive again, but worse because each time I went to learn the car had a different opinion that day.
      I felt like I struggled. I got laughed at and I laughed with the people at the stables as kids the age of 10 or 12 were running circles around me.
      I could go one day and feel like I had it, the horse would listen and I knew what I was doing only to go back the day later and struggle to get the thing to go forward.
      It took a year, minimum because it's hard to really put a finger on when it clicked, to actually sit on a horse and consistently get basic forward, stop and turn, never mind everything else. And I swear to god there is a lot of everything else.

      Horse riding is really complicated

      A horse, as mentioned, is a real living breathing animal. What that guy had for breakfast today is going to effect your ride today. You don't get that on a motorbike.
      I'm writing this section before I even get as far as owning a horse too, so bare in mind these are all riding school horses, not my own.
      So you sit on a horse and you know the mechanical signals to move the animal the way you want. I won't go into detail. As a rider, you have to both read the animal, as you would a person in a social setting, and also set the tone on the horse too. By sitting on that horse and giving clear, no nonsense instructions, the animal also builds trust with you too. Both on a momentary and a long term basis.
      This means that, you could sit on a horse and give it the right mechanical cues, but the horse will go "nah" or it half ass it. As a rider, it take so, so much practice to learn how to pick up on these cues and also correct them and, even better, avoid them in the first place! And it's obviously even harder when you are learning at a stable and you aren't sure you are going to get the same horse every lesson.
      OK, still with me? Because so far we've sat on a horse.
      The horse can spook, the horse can be lazy, the horse can be really energetic, the horse can be stronger on one "rein" (the direction of travel around a riding school) than the other, the horses tackle may be uncomfortable for the horse, the horse may have sore feet, the horse might have a really boucy trot or a slow canter or goes straight into gallop from walk. The variables are impossible to list. As a software engineer, the thought of trying to ride a horse programaticially sounds nigh on impossible. It's all vibes.
      And that's part one of this massive post, it's all vibes.
      It's the vibes. You spend years learning how to vibe check a half ton dog so you know ahead of time it's probably not to pleased about the upcoming bush which is a slightly different colour and you can do something about it.

      Horses are weird animals

      So far in this post, I've been learning to ride and I've started to understand, ok, there's a lot going on there. I can trot, I can move the horse but I can't really do much with that beyond go for a nice walk really. There's a lot more to do.
      Around this point, thanks to the aforementioned partner, I was gifted a horse. He's a handsome quarter horse named Brego (yes, named after that Brego).
      I was told "Brego is lazy, he'd rather stand there than throw you off, perfect for learning" I was dubious.
      I met this horse, he didn't say much, or do much. I can read dogs, but this man was giving me nothing.
      Needless to say, I started riding him and it was a rocky start. He lived up to expectations and he refused to go out of sight of the house, and I didn't have the skillset to know what to do with him.
      I got a horse trainer over and she gave me the tools, which springboarded Brego and I off into the woods for some adventures together.
      It's taken another year, a lot of questions, getting thrown off (not Brego as promised) and many, many neck scratches but I'm getting it now.
      They don't really communicate like other animals, a lot of it is silent and very subtle. Posture, ears, eyes, jaws and being tense are all little signs of horse language.
      Nowadays Brego will see me across the field and push all the other horses out the way to see me, then just stand there. He just likes to hang out with the boys, you know?
      So that's part two, the animal bond and it's a great feeling! It is like a big, weird dog. They all are full of this bizzare personality that horse people keep trying to put into buckets, but it doesn't really seem to always work.

      Putting it together

      Having an animal you love and trust, who also loves and trusts you, through hard work ontop of the honestly rediculous amount of skill and patience required to vibe check a horse and ride it is a huge payoff.
      Riding a bike or car feels to me like refining a process. I can learn it reasonably quickly and then it's years of practice to get various experience and learn various niches.
      Horse riding it seems like there is always more to learn, I don't know how to format it in this post without it going on for thousands of lines.
      Just consider learning to ride, learning to jump and learning dressage on one horse, then having to apply that to another with a different temperament. There's obviously a lot of crossover, and you can learn how to ride a horse with a similar personality but every horse is unique, so you're learning how to adapt and thrive with each different animal.

      Everything else

      I didn't know where to put this but I wanted to call out the sheer volume of knowledge in the hobby/sport. I was so unaware of this before I started to learn.
      I already mentioned sitting on a horse, going forward and the intricacies there. But there is so. Much. More.
      The basics, like walking, trotting, canter, gallop, turning. Multiply that by the horse itself, riding a lazy horse is a different skillset to riding a wild beast with no stop peddle. I've seen people try to bucket horses in around 6 to 10 different types. Like I said above, I'm not sure about the buckets but these are by people who have more experience than me so maybe there's something there.
      Then you've got more advanced riding sports, jumping, dressage, cross coutry, racing. Obviously not everyone is going to learn and get into all of these but they are their own sports which I haven't even touched yet.
      Then on top of that you have non-riding skills. That is the community is very keen you understand and you are comfortable with horse care.
      We're talking stable care with mucking out, water and food, brushing before and after, tacking up and down, taking care of the tack, hoove care. To some extent there's other stuff like teeth, vaccinations, quality of life, etc etc.
      I'm listing stuff and these all have depth I don't understand, there's stuff I don't know about because I keep getting told in a matter of a fact way "oh did you not know about blah?"

      Horses are cool

      They are massive dummies but they are cool. I used to think horse riding was a sport for lazy people.
      But lord, I feel like I have to apologise! It's so damn hard and uses so much of my brain that I realize it was me on my motorbike that was the lazy one all along!
      I love learning and I feel like I learn all the time riding. The fact the fatty I'm sitting on likes me too is a good feeling too.

      Feel free to ask any questions and please share your thoughts and experiences with horses!
      Are/were you also like me?
      Are you a horse person?
      Do you think you'd ever try horse riding?

      36 votes
    17. What’s something you’re personally proud of from this year?

      Tell us something you’re proud of. Celebrate your successes! Pat yourself on the back! Bragging about yourself is not only allowed but encouraged in this topic. If you’re naturally humble and...

      Tell us something you’re proud of.

      Celebrate your successes! Pat yourself on the back!

      Bragging about yourself is not only allowed but encouraged in this topic.

      If you’re naturally humble and don’t know what to say: pretend like this is a job interview and you have to sell everyone here on your strengths and successes.

      21 votes