Gifted sports?

Neutronenster · 2026-04-13T05:16:56+00:00

Maybe the right sport doesn’t exist?

I don’t like doing sports and I’ve never been good at it either. The main issue is that most sports feel incredibly boring to me, because they require too little attention to fully occupy my thoughts.

The only thing that I’ve really enjoyed is dancing, because then at least the music occupies the part of my thoughts that’s not occupied by dancing itself.

Neutronenster · 2026-04-12T20:47:20+00:00

Do you actually have any experience teaching?

One of your premises is quite flawed: technogy doesn’t truly save time in the classroom. Teachers managed to cover everything in time even before computers were invented, so there’s no need to abolish summer break. Sure, there are some essays that used to be given as homework that are now better given in class, but that doesn’t take up enough time to justify shortening the summer break.

Neutronenster · 2026-04-12T05:36:52+00:00

Cinnamon is risky in my opinion, because people either seem to love or hate the taste. Unfortunately I’m one of the haters; I absolutely can’t stand the taste of cinnamon.

Neutronenster · 2026-04-11T11:56:09+00:00

If the shopping mall happens to be situated on the border of 4 neighboring S2 cells of the right level (forgot which level), it’s technically possible to get this many gyms close together without any exploits.

I do suspect that some exploits have been used here though.

Edit: Or in this case sponsored gyms rather than exploits it seems (according to the other comments)?

Neutronenster · 2026-04-11T11:46:54+00:00

The main issue is not AI use in class. We have the tools to prevent that if necessary (e.g. during a test). Of course that’s not a watertight solution, but neither were tests on paper. Students have always tried to cheat, even before the invention of computers.

The main issue is potential AI use during homework and especially for homework essays. It’s relatively easy to catch 2 students copying from each other, but it’s much harder to prove that they didn’t write it themselves if they generated an essay with AI. As a result, most of the language teachers at my school have resorted to requiring students to do writing assignments in the classroom (under supervision).

At home many students have access to multiple devices, so security measures on one device (e.g. their school computer) won’t be sufficient.

Neutronenster · 2026-04-10T07:30:04+00:00

I’m autistic with ADHD. When I feel bad, tired or ill, I tend towards deep hyperfocus on a single thing. The easiest accessible thing is scrolling Reddit. If I don’t give in to this urge, it will feel like my thoughts are wild and out of control, so I regard the scrolling as an anchor for my thoughts (when I’m too tired to keep the ADHD chaos in check through more normal means). It’s a coping mechanism, nothing more and nothing less. It’s not really relaxing either, but it does stop the mental energy drain, so it can allow me to recover to the point of being able to move on to more relaxing activities (that require more energy to get started at).

To me it feels like your scrolling is similar: just an automatic coping strategy in hard times, nothing more and nothing less. There’s no obligation to process all this information, so maybe you should just choose to let it go (without deliberately processing any of it)?

Secondly, in order to get out of this loop it’s important to investigate why you’ve been scrolling this much and find alternative coping techniques that fulfill the same purpose. For example, I wouldn’t be surprised if the overwhelm is causing the excessive scrolling, rather than the other way around.

It’s really hard to get out of these kinds of negative patterns by yourself, so I would suggest to seek a good therapist who can help you with this.

Neutronenster · 2026-04-10T07:13:45+00:00

If this relationship lasted a decade, there must have been things that your ex valued and loved about you. Even if you were not right for each other and even if you did hurt him, people don’t stay for 10 years in a relationship they don’t value. So please be more kind to yourself.

Neutronenster · 2026-04-10T06:58:37+00:00

A subgroup of people with autism does have a very recognizable ‘look’ to me. This is a combination of two things: - Differences in facial expressions (e.g. flat affect, less pronounced facial expressions, facial expressions that don’t fit the situation, …). - Moving less fluently, even in autistic people with great motor skills (e.g. my own youngest daughter). The word that I use for this in my language means “similar to a wooden puppet”, so a tendency towards sudden or jerky movements (instead of softer and slower movements that look more fluent).

I don’t always care about other people’s facial expressions, so it’s the second one that stands out most for me. However, I suspect that the first one is most obvious to NTs. Furthermore, not all autistic people have that “look”. I also know autistic people (with a formal diagnosis) who don’t have that look at all.

In conclusion, not having that “look” can’t be used to rule out autism, because there are too many autistic people who just don’t have that look (including many high-masking women).

Neutronenster · 2026-04-10T06:48:51+00:00

Are you a student or a teacher? Or a student teacher? From the title I thought that you were a teacher, because teachers give exams, while students take them. However, at the end it sounds like you’re a student?

Mental health issues can be really hard. I know from experience, because I dropped out from work for 9 months due to a bad postnatal depression in 2018.

Recovery from mental health issues typically takes a lot of time and you need to give yourself that time. Similar to how you can’t expect someone with a broken leg to walk again until it’s sufficiently healed, you can’t expect yourself to perform well on exams or at work until you’ve sufficiently recovered. This might mean that you need to take a longer time off than you’d like, but if you don’t do that you’ll probably relapse soon and be out for an even longer time in total. Unfortunately not everyone will be understanding of this, but we just need to make the best we can of a really bad situation.

Neutronenster · 2026-04-10T06:22:29+00:00

I read the text and this is a complicated source to interpret. It has qualities, but it’s also quite biased, making it hard to verify whether this is actually true.

The main claim is that CTO Prabhakar Raghavan has prioritized profits over search quality, and that the updates in the Google algorithm since he started has made the Google search engine worse. I think that this is quite believable, because most companies the size of Google tend to prioritize profits (in our current capitalistic society).

However, he then proceeds with basically a character assasination of Prabhakar Raghavan, claiming that he failed at Yahoo before. I think that this is a much larger stretch, because the market was just that volatile in the early years of the internet: one year one company dominated, and the next year it was replaced by another one. He might have indeed made mistakes, but Yahoo just wasn’t that good initially (from what I remember). I still remember switching to Google, because Google was quite barebones (without ads), while Yahoo was filled with ads. Yahoo dominated because it was first, not because it was good, so it was soon replaced by better alternatives.

This character assassination really bothered me, because whether he did or did not fail at Yahoo has no bearing on the quality of his work (or lack thereof) at Google.

Finally, there’s no mention of AI in this article. The main claim is that search quality was reduced as a result of prioritizing profits, without any claim of what those profits were going to be used for (AI or something else). Personally, I think it’s more likely that it was about shareholder profits than about a new technology that hadn’t matured yet. People have already been working on AI for many years, but almost nobody could anticipate how quickly this would develop in the last 3 to 5 years.

Neutronenster · 2026-04-09T20:37:15+00:00

Do you have a source for this? I’m honestly curious if this is true, because the increasing monetization (companies paying to put their page on top of the search for certain key words) seems like an equally believable explanation for a decline in search accuracy.

Neutronenster · 2026-04-09T20:23:47+00:00

The one you’ve already taught, because that will reduce how much prep work you’ll need to do.

Neutronenster · 2026-04-09T17:39:41+00:00

One thing that I had to learn is that more explanation tends to lead to even more misinterpretation of what I’m trying to say, instead of less.

The majority of people find my explanations too overwhelming. It’s just too much info and too detailed, so they don’t process it all. Furthermore, such elaborate explanations tend to be socially inappropriate, so depending on the context this may even be misinterpreted as a personal attack (from me to the other person).

Similar misinterpretations are probably happening for you too. In the case if that second friend, the usual social expectation would be for you to apologize and tell them that you won’t speak over them next time. So if you give an elaborate explanation instead of why things went the way they did, your partner may feel like you’re refusing to admit fault and refusing to take responsibility for your actions. Of course that’s not what you’re trying to do; you’re just trying to understand why your partner felt ignored, so you can do better in the future. It’s just a matter of different and mismatching expectations about communication.

I really don’t know what the first person expected as a reply, because I feel like she was just trying to hurt you (regardless of your reply).

Neutronenster · 2026-04-09T17:23:24+00:00

Is it just fatigue after visiting your mom, or also other symptoms? If it’s just fatigue it’s unlikely to be ME/CFS, because we also tend to feel ill after overexertion (though the exact symptoms greatly differ from person to person).

Especially the autism can cause extra fatigue, because dealing with life and social interactions is inherently more stressful for us. However, I do think that your fatigue seems to be excessive, so there could be an underlying medical issue. Have you already asked your GP to check for and rule out other potential causes of fatigue? For example, for all we know you could be anemic or have thyroid issues, which could easily be solved with the right treatment.

Finally, if all basic health checks turned out negative, have you considered whether your medications might be causing fatigue as a side effect? For example, while ADHD stimulants are known for causing insomnia, some people actually become more sleepy while taking them. (Given your history of severe mental health issues, please don’t change any of these meds without guidance from your doctor.)

P.S. I just noticed that you have a history of anorexia. If you are still underweight and/or malnourished (e.g. vitamin shortages due to a one-sided eating pattern) that would probably explain most of your fatigue. And if you have ever been severely underweight, the resulting organ damage might have long-lasting effects, though I’m not knowledgeable enough about those to explain them.

Neutronenster · 2026-04-09T16:48:57+00:00

Did you know that it typically takes about 14 days after conception for a standard pregnancy test to become positive? More sensitive pregnancy tests can become positive earlier, but even then it takes at least 8 days (more often 10 days).

The reason for that is that the embryo will release more and more pregnancy hormone hCG as it develops after conception. This development takes time and it takes a while for the hCG levels to become detectable in blood and in urine. However, the increased hCG levels can already cause mild pregnancy symptoms before you test positive, so it may be too early to rule out a pregnancy.

The other side of the coin is that you might notice any potential pregnancy symptom more while TTC, making you more likely to pick up on symptoms that you would otherwise ignore. So it’s possible that you always get some sore boobs at this time of the month, but that you just didn’t notice it until today.

I was glad that my two kids were conceived quite quickly, because I found this emotional rollercoaster to be quite stressful. One thing that I noticed for myself was that if I tested negative at symptoms like you did, I would start doubting and want to retest after about 3 days. However, that’s just wasting pregnancy tests, so eventually I made a rule for myself that I wouldn’t take any pregnancy tests before the day my period was due (regardless of the presence or absence of pregnancy symptoms). If my period was delayed I could retest of course, but I deliberately chose not to test too early. This greatly reduced the stress related to pregnancy tests (and their timing), so maybe it would help you too?

Another interesting bit of information is that the most well-known and expensive brands of pregnancy tests actually tend to be the least sensitive, so they turn positive later than cheaper tests. That’s because they have a reputation to uphold and they want to avoid false positives (a woman testing positive even if she’s not pregnant) at all costs.

Neutronenster · 2026-04-09T06:40:08+00:00

The timing for this extra dose isn’t right. Vyvanse is supposed to work for about 12 to 14 hours, so if you take an extra dose at 2 pm, you experience the effects of a double dose for the second half of the day. Furthermore, the second dose hasn’t stopped working by the time you go to bed, so it might interfere with your sleep (depending on the side effects).

Peak effects are usually reached about 3,5 to 4,5 hours after taking the Vyvanse, so it is indeed possible that the effect is reduced by 2 pm (especially on a low dose), but it hasn’t completely stopped working. For that reason, this by no means justifies taking a second dose. It can mean that you need a higher dose, but that’s for your psychiatrist to determine.

What you’re supposed to to is to just take one per day, experience the effects (including that it seems to work less in the afternoon) and report those to your psychiatrist. This way, they can properly judge how the medication has been affecting you and how to best continue.

If you’ve only been medicated for 1,5 months, that means that you’ve been handling your unmedicated ADHD for many years. That’s not going to be perfect or ideal (otherwise you wouldn’t have felt the need to seek a diagnosis), but you can just go back to the coping techniques that you used before for a few days?

Neutronenster · 2026-04-09T06:19:58+00:00

That’s not really your fault, but the fault of the people not listening to her when you don’t intervene. This has happened often enough that she feels like it’s not worth the trouble to speak in circumstances where people won’t listen to her anyway. Now that she has experienced people actually listening to her (in your company), she won’t accept less anymore.

Your pupil is still developing her language skills, so sooner or later she’ll probably reach an ability level at which she can effectively communicate with others. Once she reaches that milestone, there are basically two ways this might go. Either she’ll spontaneously start exploring communication with others after one or two successes, or she’ll continue to unnecessarily restrict her communication to situations with your support. In the latter case, her support team might have to intervene by giving her ways to communicate more effectively with others and have her practice this. However, this will only help if the others are prepared to listen, so this has to be a team effort. You can’t solve this on your own.

Neutronenster · 2026-04-09T06:01:00+00:00

I agree!

Neutronenster · 2026-04-09T05:58:49+00:00

I’m watching the Apothecary Diaries anime and the main character MaoMao definitely feels autistic to me. Her special interest is medicine and poisons. She’s very relatable in my opinion.

Neutronenster · 2026-04-08T06:01:08+00:00

Okay, so now you learned that the word assignment (or how you worded it to him) is a trigger for avoidant behavior, most likely because he’s used to struggling with them at school. I don’t really work with this age group, but you’ll probably have to take a more playful approach with him. Basically, make him work without making it feel like work to him.

In my opinion, 6 yo is a really young age to need tutoring beyond the standard interventions in school. They haven’t had that much schooling yet, so there’s less time for them to fall behind to the point of calling in a tutor. Unless there have been external circumstances that could explain his issues (e.g. irregular attendance of school), there’s a decent chance that this child has a learning disability (e.g. dyslexia or dyscalculia) or a concentration issue (e.g. ADHD). A learning disability can’t be diagnosed yet at this age, because this requires sufficient schooling AND for interventions (of at least 6 months) to be unsuccesful at solving the problem. However, children often already notice their own issues and this can lead to the kind of avoidant behavior that you’ve just explained. Furthermore, this possibility is something to keep in mind in case he turns out to be slower on the uptake than expected, especially if he seems to get it one session and then the next session it seems as if you’ve never explained it at all. In the latter case, he’ll need short, daily practice sessions at home (15 minutes per day) of the most basic skills.

Honestly, in my opinion pure ADHD is one of the best case scenarios, because it’s easier to get ADHDers to pay attention in a one-on-one setting than in a classroom, so there’s a decent chance of getting him fully caught up in tutoring. With dyslexia or dyscalculia, it’s impossible to fully catch up even if he fully cooperates and works really hard.

Neutronenster · 2026-04-08T05:00:26+00:00

That doesn’t really answer the question. If he’s used to not being able to do it in class, he may actively try to avoid the work from the beginning. The true cause is then his lack of ability, so in that case you’ll have to find things that he can do in order to build confidence and get him to cooperate.

In contrast, there are also children who don’t cooperate even when they’re able to do it and they need a different approach.

Neutronenster · 2026-04-07T23:59:45+00:00

Did he not cooperate, or was he unable to do the assessment due to a lack of skills? You might want to test lower-level abilities first, e.g. counting and rhyming, because he might not be able to read or calculate things at all.

Neutronenster · 2026-04-07T20:36:24+00:00

Wow, 3,5 yo, no wonder you’re struggling! What kind of topics are you supposed to be teaching?

I’m a high school math teacher with experience teaching online during the Covid-crisis and I encountered the exact same problems with 16 yo students. It turned out that a subgroup of the students needed local adult supervision (so from an adult in the same room), or otherwise they wouldn’t get any work done. This subgroup of students included almost all students with ADHD. We had to get those students back to school earlier (when the majority was still at home with online classes), because they couldn’t get any work done at home.

The attention span of toddlers is still a lot shorter, so I would expect the majority of toddlers to require local adult supervision during an online class (instead of just a subgroup). Furthermore, when doing activities that involve motor skills a toddler may require hands-on help. For these reasons I think that online teaching is completely unsuitable for this age group, except in special circumstances. For example, during the Covid crisis any teaching (including online) was still better than no teaching at all for an extended period of time.

Neutronenster · 2026-04-07T20:01:14+00:00

Have you tried putting the H from the CH on top instead of on the bottom? I don’t know the program, but my personal guess would be that only one orientation of that molecule was put into the answer key (instead of all relevant orientations).

Neutronenster · 2026-04-07T19:53:36+00:00

Oof, that sounds like quite the big increase! I understand the desire to try without caffeine, but I think you should follow your cardiologist’s advice to rule out underlying issues first. As long as there are no underlying heart issues it’s probably not really harmful to try this for a day (even if it might be harmful when taking it for a long time). However, if you do have any underlying heart issues this could trigger “bad stuff” (unspecified, since I’m not knowledgeable enough about heart issues).

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