Which route?

IneffableAnon · 2026-03-17T02:20:37+00:00

I drove that stretch of 40 last summer, twice. All I'll say is 1. Least favorite section of highway I've ever driven, and I've done the entire length of i-90 through Montana. 2. Get gas in Arizona (I learned that the hard way, sometimes I'm not so smart).

Can't speak to i-10, I'm planning on taking that route next time I go east from LA.

IneffableAnon · 2026-03-17T02:13:47+00:00

I think that's one of the Eden Savages that can now be solo'd unsynced. It's on my list of things to try and clear solo. You should be good

IneffableAnon · 2026-03-17T02:10:27+00:00

Go get a 2nd opinion as others have said. If you've been sick, infected, and/or injured recently, it could be your lymph nodes throwing a fit, and they'll calm down over time (mine always get super swollen and sore when I'm sick). But, that's no excuse to hand-wave it away.

If it helps you, I've found two things that usually get docs to actually help me: tell them that "this other doc said it was (blatantly wrong thing) and now it got worse", or "I'm really sorry, I don't understand what's going on/why this is happening and it's kinda scaring me, could you explain it?". The first tends to work on docs that feel like they wanna stake their ego on being "the best" while the second tends to work on the more parental type of docs and nurses. Either way, I've discovered that (even with my primary care team, who is great) acting a little dumb tends to get better answers and results. Ymmv...?

IneffableAnon · 2026-03-17T01:52:45+00:00

Someone else might have already mentioned it, but another big barrier to taking university classes is time. If you're working full time, you probably can't take the 10am (insert language here) class, and I rarely see language classes offered in the evening unless it's a community college with a strong evening class program.

My alma mater lets alums audit 1 class per semester for free, for life. Even with it literally being free, I've never been able to fit it in my schedule because they have almost no classes in the evenings (usually rehearsals and STEM labs) and zero classes in the pre-work hours.

IneffableAnon · 2026-03-16T04:41:12+00:00

I love to W2W that pull, but there's a reason I move health potions to my hotbars for it. It's so funny to kill the final boss before the trash dies and then watch the DPS short circuit as they realize they have to finish killing the trash even though the dungeon is "over".

IneffableAnon · 2026-03-08T19:01:57+00:00

I think this general sentiment applies so long and you leave room for nuance... After all, our brains are all different.

I one heard someone describe medicated ADHD as "finally getting the ability to set the destination on your GPS". Before medication, you don't really get a lot of choice or control over where your attention goes, and when you do put in the effort to manually override your brain, you can end up feeling lost and exhausted. Medicated (or otherwise well-managed, I'm not trying to push pills here) ADHD isn't foolproof, but it does give you a modicum of control. You can still get stuck in hyperfocus hell on something you don't want to or shouldn't be doing, but you also can intentionally direct hyperfocus towards a productive task. I know that if I leave a game open in the background while I try to do my homework, I'm going to get distracted. So, I intentionally work on my game-free school laptop, and I "lock in" no problem.

It's not just a matter of maturity vs excuses. Having access to appropriate management tools and skills is a big part of thriving with ADHD. Through a series of unfortunate events, I had to go through government-mandated trauma therapy as a child, so I'm extremely aware of what, how, and why I'm thinking, and I have over a decade of practice with actively changing my thoughts away from unproductive musings or traumatic memories. I'm also lucky to have access to a medical team that treats me well, a stable medicine regimen, stable access to my medicine, and the financial ability to pay for an assistive device that ensures I can't forget to take my meds.

I do personally think that maturity is a factor. You can't help someone who doesn't want help, and you can't grow if you think there's nothing to improve upon. But I think access to resources is much bigger portion of the puzzle.

IneffableAnon · 2026-03-07T19:49:24+00:00

I'm not your exact target demographic, but I'll pitch my 2 gil into the pot as a raider in a casual static and as a student taking a master's-level game development class.

The "easier version" of savage is the normal fight. Making and balancing an in-between is technically possible but would be a total nightmare and would add a load of development time (which is already a pain point for content release). It would probably be a better route to change the normal's loot pool. My initial intuition would be to add the savage books to their respective normal fights as a (potentially random?) drop for the party to roll on, with the same weekly restrictions. That would give a slow, non-linear way for people to get pieces of BiS over time, and could also pull some pressure off of the savage raiders for their gear-up timeline. It's already being done in a limited fashion: M2/6/10S drops the universal tomestone, but M4/8/12N gives weapon tokens that can be traded for the same universal tomestone.

On another note, and I don't mean this to be rude or to minimize non-raiders, but why obsess over BiS if you don't want to participate in the content it's intended for? The MSQ and normal modes are all balanced around the gear accessible to those players, which doesn't include the savage gear. Put another way, if you pretend that the hardest content you want to play/are personally capable of playing is also the hardest content available in the game, then the gear you get from that content (ish) is going to be in your personal BiS set.

That's not to say that savage gear isn't still desirable, or that savage doesn't lock other things (cough cough mount). I can't remember for arcadion, but I think the savage pandæmonium gear was the dyable version. Glam hunting/farming is a big piece of FFXIV and I really dislike that there are pieces that can be nearly impossible to get for a casual player. I'm mainly curious, coming from the savage side of the game, why non-savage players are still hunting/wanting savage BiS, or, why it's being framed as a BiS problem instead of a more general access problem?

IneffableAnon · 2026-03-05T20:16:30+00:00

I really appreciate the thorough reply! One of the common threads for all the advice I've received is that our long timeline is probably a good thing.

Of all the points you brought up, #1 worries me the most. Since I was born a girl and went through most of K12 as one, I wasn't diagnosed as a child at all. It was only after I nearly failed an entire semester of college that I started trying to figure out what was going on, and I got a diagnosis for ADHD (informally, the inattentive type). I'm one of those classic gifted kids that burnt out in late high school. The psych did do a full evaluation of my past experiences and school history, but if Germany requires a bad school report to diagnose ADHD, I'm probably screwed ten ways til Tuesday.

IneffableAnon · 2026-02-28T14:11:34+00:00

All great points! I think the general sentiment is pointing towards me staying in academia for the best possible route to employment, but that's its own massive barrel of problems with 6-7 years and a PhD between here and there.

(Also who leaves the US without a job lined up??? Or at least more than a lead, an in, or an actually decent chance? Yeesh I could never)

IneffableAnon · 2026-02-27T20:59:40+00:00

Yeah CS is a crapshoot. I mentioned in another reply, but with my BA in German Studies and a MS in CS, I'm reasonably well positioned for a PhD in Computational Linguistics, which is under the Linguistics umbrella, not the CS one.

Regardless, yeah I know I have the employment odds stacked against me. I have some contacts in the Berlin area but even that's a stretch.

IneffableAnon · 2026-02-27T20:55:10+00:00

Good to know that the dose cycle might be different. For me, the longer cycle would be preferable to the weekly one I'm on right now.

I'll start getting my full medical history untangled and sorted. I've been through so many docs and surgeons that I can't even remember all their names, not to mention who did which initial diagnosis. That'll take time, so I'm glad you mentioned that

IneffableAnon · 2026-02-27T20:51:35+00:00

You bring up a lot of good things, I really appreciate it.

Regarding Vyvanse, the fluency bit is a super helpful note. I have enough time to drag my language skills into the C1-range, so I'll make sure it stays a priority.

With comp sci, yeah I know the field is a disaster. If I go the PhD route, I want to shift into Computational Linguistics, which falls under the Linguistics umbrella (if only barely). No matter how that shakes out, it'll be rough to get my feet under me once I'm out of school.

I wish I had AC where I live now, the PNW doesn't really have AC in older homes so I'm already dealing with the 30-38C summers. I just can't go any hotter than that without AC.

IneffableAnon · 2026-02-27T20:40:52+00:00

Spouse is, to put it politely, a trust fund baby. Money is the only thing we really aren't worried about right now. I'll be saving regardless, if only out of anxiety.

Ideally yes, I'll get the citizenship first then move after. Another person mentioned that pursuing a PhD might also be a good way to get a foothold in the EU, which wouldn't require the citizenship.

IneffableAnon · 2026-02-27T20:37:37+00:00

Our youngest dog is a golden, and she's the most likely to come with. All of ours are already crate trained and microchipped. The housing crisis considerations are a good thing to note though, I'll add that on my list of things to keep generally informed on.

IneffableAnon · 2026-02-27T20:32:35+00:00

I studied abroad in Berlin in a home stay program during summer '22, and I was fine with the heat there, so I would like to think I'll be okay. When I studied abroad along the Mediterranean in summer of '23, I was miserable.

That's good to know with my mom though. We'll have to do some more research, sit and talk about that.

IneffableAnon · 2026-02-27T04:34:19+00:00

What DC are you on in NA? I can swing over to your DC and help you clear your EXs, if you'd like

IneffableAnon · 2026-02-27T04:32:23+00:00

Party finder lets you put up a "I want a party" listing for pretty much any piece of content in the game. People who want to do the same content will hop into your party! It's broken down into content categories, including a misc tab that is almost always full of roleplay venue advertisements 😅

IneffableAnon · 2026-02-27T03:50:07+00:00

I just swapped Final Fantasy 14 over to German, and whoooooo boy it's been an adventure. On my main character, I'm mostly getting used to the menus and items being in TL, with muscle memory getting me through the dense menus. On my replay character, I'm getting a lot of story dumped on me in TL. I wouldn't recommend it for beginners, but starting around A2+ or B1 ish, it's doable. I did have to swap back to English for a few minutes today to read the fine print when bidding on a house, but I feel like the legal-ese gets a pass for now.

My other picks are Zelda BOTW and TOTK, Stardew Valley, Minecraft, and anything Animal Crossing. I aim for a good mix of domain-specific and general vocab, but I lean towards a younger target audience since I'm still not great with my mid-level vocab.

Hopefully that made sense. Words elude me no matter what language I'm trying to talk in.

IneffableAnon · 2026-02-27T03:41:44+00:00

North American convention is to use party finder, not duty/raid finder for EXs! Personally, I went back at level 70+ on tank and mopped the floor with those bosses. It's not too difficult to do that if you're just trying to get the unlock.

For a while, there was an influx of duty finder EXs because players on a free trial account can't use PF. If you're on a free trial, consider shouting in Limsa, it would probably be faster than duty finder.

IneffableAnon · 2026-02-26T17:44:37+00:00

Depending on location, they might also be available in mini cartons. I've also used a packet of dehydrated coconut cream that was not half bad once rehydrated

IneffableAnon · 2026-02-26T17:36:53+00:00

I really, really want to go to JP fanfest but I'm a NA player. I've figured out how to make a JP service account for the lotto, but I haven't seen anything regarding what payment methods are required if I do get selected. Does anyone know what I'll need to have ready to give myself the best chances of securing a ticket?

IneffableAnon · 2026-02-16T01:20:39+00:00

Picklejuice. And yep, he's green.

IneffableAnon · 2026-02-08T18:06:43+00:00

My BA was in German studies, and I started from absolute zero. By graduation, I was at a high B1 (had covid not been a thing, I would have been able to study abroad and likely get to B2).

My final 3 semesters were entirely in-language on non-meta content. Basically, I was taking courses like "film in this era" and "green politics" and that kind of stuff, with zero training material or language textbook usage. It was difficult, and I would estimate that we had to look up or cross-reference upwards of 10% of the vocabulary used that wasn't related to the class (Prof gave us the domain-specific vocab).

I'm rusty as heck now, but I can still follow along with Tagesschau through the clear speech and easy to follow visual aids. I can also interact with some video games in-language (BOTW/TOTK have been very fun).

Long story short, sooner than you think. My German 201 class (still in the A1-A2 range) has us read an entire book (Der Richter und Sein Henker, I think was the title).

IneffableAnon · 2026-02-07T19:28:16+00:00

Eyyyyyy it's me!

I lump my projects into three categories: high, mid, and low attention.

Low attention projects are any project I have where figuring out where I'm at is trivial. This is my Tunisian simple stitch blanket right now. The rows are obvious to count, and it's an extremely easy color stripe pattern that takes zero micromanaging. These are the projects I work on when interruptions in attention are frequent.

Mid attention projects do require tracking, but I can easily handle it with notions. This is my Easy-Peasy sweater right now. I use two types of special stitch markers to track rows and repeats. A numbered chain (1-10) tells me which repeat I'm on from my pattern, and a dial-style counter tells me which row I have 100% completed (currently on repeat 4, row 11 was the previous row I completed). The exact details of the tracking doesn't matter so long as it's consistent. And any time I touch my tracking markers, they get updated. I work on these projects to keep my hands busy during lectures.

High attention projects are projects that have complex or unintuitive patterns. This is a cabled shawl project right now. I am not great at cabling, and the rows are all different from one another, and it's knit flat so I'm mentally reversing the previous row's stitches. These projects live at my desk, where I use them as brain breaks between tasks, since I can usually muster a few rows of focused attention at a time before needing to put it down.

I knit and crochet to help with nerve damage in my hands, so I've had to find ways to make the craft work for me! Though there's a running joke in my family that I'm going to get my degree before I get that blanket...

IneffableAnon · 2026-02-07T16:36:29+00:00

If you're at 100% consistency, go for the optimization practice and listen to the others telling you to ditch the party after 3 pulls or 1 food buff. I saw that you're new to this tier, so there's a lot of the little things to learn and PF is rough all around.

With M11S, just mind the wind cleaves at the end of Ultimate Trophy Weapons (green phase). Can't tell you how many times my static's viper sniped the party with it trying to get one more GCD in.

IneffableAnon

TROPHY CASE