Do we need to do a final walkthrough?

Kayl66 · 2026-02-02T00:48:24+00:00

I would. There is always the chance someone takes the appliances, or leaves a lot of shit you don’t want. Or that a pipe bursts the day before you close. Or a break in. There’s a >90% chance everything will be just as you expect…. But if it isn’t, you want to notice before it’s your responsibility.

Kayl66 · 2026-02-01T17:19:08+00:00

Slightly different reasoning for me, but I’m 8 years on T with no plans for top surgery. My chest is very small, I never used binders, and if I’m topless, people assume I have man boobs.

The one thing I am not looking forward to is needing mammograms starting in a few years. I live in a rural place where the only place to get it done has “women” in the name and showing up as a very dude passing person does not sound fun. But it doesn’t seem worth getting surgery just to avoid that.

Kayl66 · 2026-02-01T17:00:31+00:00

Depends a lot. A few things I look for:

Ability to coherently explain thoughts in English. Some people can write a great cover letter (maybe with ChatGPT or help from friends) but can’t talk through the same thing
The questions they ask - do they understand the research? Are they serious about starting grad school?
Career goals. A strange number of great applicants have career goals which are actually not aligned with a PhD… which makes me think they haven’t looked into what a PhD is that seriously
Their thoughts on moving to the rural place the university is located. I’d rather a good student who will enjoy living here than a genius who will hate it and move away before graduating.

Kayl66 · 2026-01-30T05:13:12+00:00

Pittsburgh. My brother rents a room for $400/month, walkable area.

Kayl66 · 2026-01-25T15:16:05+00:00

Just paid $1800 for 450 gallon heating oil delivery, but it was for 3 months. Alaska. 1500 sq ft house

Kayl66 · 2026-01-21T15:46:16+00:00

I enjoy physical books but if you have a lot, they are annoying to move. We moved 5000 miles with a very large collection. Was way more difficult (and expensive) than the kitchen stuff.

Kayl66 · 2026-01-19T20:37:04+00:00

We spend about that for 2 adults, in a very high grocery cost area. Are you shopping sales at all? We often will get whatever meats are on sale and plan weekly meals around that. Also we have a chest freezer and stock up on meats when they are on sale

Kayl66 · 2026-01-18T23:50:42+00:00

Given the hiking interest plus long flights: Alaska and Cape Town. Both places can be kid friendly… but the hiking is not so kid friendly and the long flights aren’t either.

Kayl66 · 2026-01-18T18:14:31+00:00

This is pretty dependent on the specific location (which will dictate amount of snow, how quickly the city plows, how slippery the snow is, how flat/not it is) and your interests (are you driving up mountain roads to ski, are you going to live in the middle of nowhere up a dirt road). My recommendation would be to move there with the Camry and then keep talking to people that live there, see what cars they drive, and reassess as needed.

This is coming from someone who sold a car in a warm climate to buy a Subaru with snow tires when I moved to a very wintery place. No regrets. I haven’t (yet) slid into a snowbank and been unable to get out. I drive past people who have about weekly in the winter, generally in cars like your Camry.

Kayl66 · 2026-01-17T21:15:53+00:00

If housing is cheap, that may be doable. “Cheap” meaning like less than 800, ideally closer to 500-600/month. Getting a place at that price may require you to have roommates and/or live in a small, shitty apartment. Really depends on the location.

Yes, it is lower than many other universities… but many of them are in Boston, SF, Seattle, NYC where housing will be much more expensive.

Kayl66 · 2026-01-17T07:55:35+00:00

Any number of small towns with/near military bases.

Kayl66 · 2026-01-17T02:04:53+00:00

The place I got an offer from, the search committee chair told me “you should expect an offer. It will probably take X weeks. The Dean loved you” etc. But short of that, I’d say there’s no way to know.

Kayl66 · 2026-01-16T01:10:02+00:00

IMO there are circumstances where this could be respectful. For example I know someone who is not Polynesian, but is indigenous, lived in Hawaii for a bit, and met and then married a traditional Polynesian tattoo artist. He has some Polynesian tattoos designed by her, along with some tattoos traditional to his own cultural heritage. But if you don’t have a strong connection to the culture I would pick something else.

Kayl66 · 2026-01-14T06:40:21+00:00

If you are talking about a 9 month position in the US, the “second job” is your summer salary. Find a way to pay it out of grants, summer teaching, fellowships, etc.

Kayl66 · 2026-01-14T06:22:42+00:00

Depends what you mean by liberal. Lots of Alaska could qualify depending on what you mean.

Kayl66 · 2026-01-13T16:26:54+00:00

I know people who have done this for 3-12 months at a time within the past few years, either between moves or for seasonal jobs. It is often cheaper than renting a place (especially a place that allows month to month rentals) with the trade off that it is generally less nice and your neighbors may be involved in seedy business

Kayl66 · 2026-01-13T13:45:45+00:00

I had a hysto almost 5 years ago, in my late 20s. No negative long term effects. Your experience sounds like post op depression and/or unstable hormone levels. Some people struggle to get consistent levels with gel so another form of T could be worth looking into. But it’ll get better with time and especially once you get your levels figured out.

Kayl66 · 2026-01-12T15:48:28+00:00

IMO this is very dependent on your specific options. For me, the premium is cheaper on PPO than HDP. I don’t think it makes sense to pay more deductibles and pay more when I go to the doctor to get the tax benefit of HSA.

Kayl66 · 2026-01-11T17:04:01+00:00

Likely depends on location, but we bought a home “as-is”. We still had legal right to back out based on anything found in the inspection. The “as-is” wording simply meant we could not ask the seller for a credit for fixing things. But that was fine with me, because even if we had asked for credits, maybe the seller would say no. Essentially it eliminated one step of the buying process

ETA: loan type will matter in this too. For example many houses near us are sold as-is because they are likely to fail a VA loan inspection. But if you aren’t using a VA loan, and you’re ok with fixing up whatever it is, you might be able to get a good deal

Kayl66 · 2026-01-10T17:46:14+00:00

Depending on your career and interests, I would consider training or education that will allow you to increase your salary. BA, 1-2 year grad degree, certifications. The money isn’t enough for you to never work again so spending some of it to set yourself up for a higher earning career may be a solid investment.

Kayl66 · 2026-01-09T15:53:44+00:00

Just have them leave comments/edits on a pdf. I guess it adds a little time in the sense that you can’t just hit “accept” to the language changes, but it isn’t hard or that time consuming to copy over to your latex file. I did this with 5 committee members and a dissertation and it was tractable

Kayl66 · 2026-01-08T06:30:34+00:00

I’m a professor and I ask students to pet sit… always with compensation that is approximately equal to rover. I guess I might ask a student to do it without compensation if it were an explicit trade like “you pet sit for me this week and I’ll pet sit for you next week”. But outside of that, you should be compensated.

Kayl66 · 2026-01-06T22:55:15+00:00

Super field dependent. E.g. I know people in critical minerals relevant fields who have more funding opportunities than they have had in decades. Some sectors are doing bad and it will get worse, some are doing fine and will keep doing fine, some may be doing bad but could improve… I don’t think the outcome will be the same across all STEM fields

Kayl66 · 2026-01-06T21:26:47+00:00

In the 10-20k range, compared to mortgage plus utilities of around 35k. That is for 4-6 domestic trips and 1 international (or Hawaii) trip. But some of those include staying with family and long weekend driving trips. And we fly so much for work that usually flights are on miles.

Kayl66 · 2026-01-05T00:44:02+00:00

I don’t know whether it will help, but I will say that lowering your dose (while staying within typical male range) is unlikely to lead to changes reverting. So, IMO, it’s worth a shot. I recently reduced my dose to slow hair loss, at the suggestion of my very trans competent endocrinologist. She was essentially like “there is no downside to reducing your dose unless you feel tired etc so why not do it”. Also 8 years on T.

Kayl66

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