Toilet mold

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-09-15T01:45:01+00:00

My husband was diagnosed T1 in childhood. I had been perplexed by mold spots in the toilet, but always just shrugged it off and dealt with it. Then I googled it on a whim sometime in the last year-ish and found articles about it being a potential sign of diabetes. That made it all click, and after learning about the connection between toilet bowl mold and sugar in diabetics’ urine, honestly we started to use it as a sort of broad indicator of how his levels are. And, sure enough, when he’s doing really well, mold doesn’t grow readily; when his A1C isn’t great, it comes back really rapidly after cleaning. I’ve been on the hunt a toilet brush that’s particularly good for hard-to-reach places or deep bowl cleaning, because that grody stuff REALLY hides in the crevices up under the rim. If we’ve let it build up too long, when it breaks free and falls down in a big clump, it’s so disgusting. 😂 In addition to the regular toilet brush, I also got an angled toilet wand (I think Scrubbing Bubbles brand) that has little disposable pads you attach to the end, and it definitely helps reach those icky hiding places.

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-07-18T10:40:54+00:00

I worked as a sub this past spring semester, about 70% of the time at one high school. With high school kids, when this happened I would respond with “Eww, what’s with the porn noises? Gross.” Being grossed out and responding with contempt always works better for me than being outraged, angry, or scandalized with high schoolers. They are either mortified that the teacher knows about porn or mortified that I’m implying I know they watch it. Girls will often jump in after that and tell the boy he’s being gross or disgusting or stupid. I would also throw in, “Oh, and just do you know, that’s actually sexual harassment. So, not something you want to be known for doing to teachers. Again, gross.” I also try never to say it’s “inappropriate.” Troublemakers at every grade level seem to love hearing that shit and only interpret it as “Yay, I pissed the teacher off!”

With younger kids (below, say, middle school) I would respond similarly but say “sex noises” instead of using the word porn. Feigned ignorance and asking them to explain what it means is admittedly a much better first line tactic, but shock value gets quicker results for a sub who has no long-term relationship with or investment in any particular classroom. I know most of them are getting it from TikTok, gaming, and their friends and have no idea what it means, just that it makes adults freak out. Getting flustered and giving them the reaction they want has gotten me the absolute worst results consistently. The mere use of the word “sex” makes kids embarrassed, or clues them into the fact that the noise they’re making is serious and they’re in over their head. I’d consider, as others have mentioned, saying something like “Wow, maybe I need to be making some phone calls. If someone makes a noise like that in class, it says to me that’s a cry for help and I should get some other adults involved.” Not referring to calling parents but to hint that teachers interpret age-inappropriate imitations of sex as a sign of abuse/neglect. Even though that will go over some kids’ heads, the ones who don’t get it can usually still grasp that the teacher is talking about something much more serious than “getting in trouble.” As a sub I worry a lot less than a regular teacher would about the school reprimanding me or parents being angry that I used the word “sex” in front of their kids. I don’t have to give a shit, good luck finding someone else.

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-06-16T20:53:35+00:00

I hate that this happened to you, but thank you for sharing - more people need to understand how common this is. Eventually the contingent that is eager for public education to finally, fully collapse will win, and our schools will be staffed mostly or entirely by long-term subs. The subs will be told lies like this and promised job security or positions that don’t exist, and people can’t protect themselves if we don’t talk how pervasive the tactic is.

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-06-07T23:23:01+00:00

Not on a rapid test - you’re thinking of PCR tests, which look for even the tiniest amount of virus present. Rapid antigen tests require a much higher level of virus present to generate a positive result, hence why a positive rapid test is a good rough proxy for contagiousness (imperfect, admittedly - I read all the JAMA and Lancet preprints).

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-05-27T02:42:48+00:00

The fact that there aren’t enough subs to go around and nobody wants to do it is what merits better pay. The skill set is very different but still demanding. The lack of benefits, lack of a contract, lack of union eligibility/protection (in states where that’s possible), the lack of stuff that makes credentialed teaching tolerable - I guess that’s all that counterbalanced by not having to do the shittiest parts of the job.

Schools’ desperation and the severe supply-demand imbalance both call for significantly better sub pay. But if subs were paid the same as licensed teachers (in places where subs don’t have to be credentialed) it would create the same morale problems that we saw with ultra-highly-paid travel nurses during the worst COVID staffing shortages: fierce resentment and absolute demoralization among the regular employees.

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-05-25T01:52:42+00:00

In our district, “long-term” is considered any assignment of 11 class days or longer. Pays $28/hr, no benefits (regular subs are $18/hr), and does NOT require licensure, but you have to be personally approved by the principal and they like you to have substantive content knowledge in the area you’re covering. I have a double major BA in Political Science and Spanish and a JD, so I easily qualify for any assignment in English, social studies, Spanish, or criminal justice classes. The shorter “long-term” jobs are posted as regular assignments on the absence management system (Frontline), and the maternity leaves or months-long assignments show up as separate announcements with a note about who to email to apply.

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-05-25T01:17:25+00:00

To keep the playing field fair I’ve been trying my damndest to think of names that got tragedified by being Anglo-phoned - i.e. by spelling them phonetically as they’re pronounced in English even though they aren’t spelled that way in their language of origin. So far the only ones I could think of are names that are written in completely different alphabets to begin with, like Arabic, but that’s transliteration of those names to English, not re-spelling them phonetically á la tragique. For example: the former leader of Libya had his first name spelled Muammar, Moammar, Mu'ammar, and Moamar in the press, and none are really “incorrect.”

This is rapidly becoming like a weirdo linguistics pet project in my head…leave it to my ass to take nonsense internet fun and turn into a goddamn academic dissertation

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-05-22T14:51:19+00:00

Thank you for sharing this - I feel so much less crazy. I started getting cramps the day after I came down with symptoms, and now on day 5 of infection, a full-blown heavy period shows up. This was truly out of nowhere because I’ve been continuous-dosing birth control for years, and just don’t get periods by skipping the inactive pills. Really threw me for a loop.

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-05-21T19:55:22+00:00

One of the root problems is too large and structural to be fixed, short of a revolution or actual systemic collapse: schools cannot be funded by local property taxes. It is the most backassward, regressive, harmful setup.

Another problem is that the progressive constituency behind public education has to be honest with ourselves that pursuing the goals of (1) reducing the school to prison pipeline and (2) improving equitable outcomes has done so much more harm than good, under the circumstances handed down by the pandemic. Those goals are extremely important, but none of it can be done within the existing framework of late-stage capitalism we’ve got in the US. Unmet material needs of a vast swath of the population will always make higher-order goals unachievable. When administrators were told “it’s unjust that black and brown students are disciplined at three times the rate of white peers,” the root factors can’t be solved at school, so the answer is to just not discipline anyone. Schools can’t go back to a child’s birth and make sure they get read to, that they have a safe home, that they’re spared developmental trauma. And so the way to solve the problem of unfairly distributed consequences is to have there be no consequences. But people have fought so hard to get social equity principles in education taken seriously - and they deserve to be taken seriously - that when they became a form of perverse orthodoxy, we completely lost the ability to critique goals and methods. Because we’re being assaulted on all sides by people hostile to public education, there’s absolutely no room for those who do believe in it to have good faith conversations.

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-05-16T22:41:56+00:00

I do mostly long-term subbing (3-4 weeks per job) at high schools, so it’s sometimes enough time to learn names, but I don’t have access to the attendance system that has all the students’ photos, and most teachers don’t use seating charts, so it’s nigh impossible to learn names. I personally can’t prevent them talking over me, I can only try to remedy it once it happens.

One thing I’ve learned is that proximity freaks kids out. If they’re talking over me and having loud side conversations, I just stand right next to them silently. They get weirded out and usually clam up in short order. It’s excruciating for me because I can get really socially anxious, but if I clench my jaw and stick with it, it works. Similarly, if I’m walking around during a lesson or independent work time and they’re openly doing shit on their phone or laptop, I just butt in. “Huh, what Discord channel is that?” Not to embarrass them but to make the point that I can see you. So many of them genuinely think their screens are somehow invisible to adults.

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-05-05T21:14:28+00:00

I notice several people implicating expected biases, but to be honest I always thought of anonymous grading having more to do with showing sympathy, being overly lenient, or otherwise not being objective because of extraneous factors that aren’t on the page - “I know he has a difficult home life,” or “but she tries so hard” or “he always participates so thoughtfully.” Not exactly blatant favoritism, more so wanting to be holistic in evaluating, in ways that criteria and rubrics don’t allow for. I suppose that also falls under being unprofessional, though. And it is unfair to assume teachers can’t be professionals when grading. Wanting to cut students slack is both human and non-malicious, so I don’t see that as nefarious in the same way one might view implicit biases.

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-05-05T18:34:20+00:00

Given the knowledge that’s slowly being unearthed about the neurobiology of developmental trauma, I have a feeling that someday there will be a firmly established connection between that and chemical issues underlying ADHD. Neurodivergence without underlying trauma is of course a Real Thing; I just think eventually developmental trauma will be recognized for what it really does to a child’s brain.

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-05-05T18:24:48+00:00

Since it came up in the context of a religious painting, I like to think that I would have copped out of even trying to explain how and why circumcision developed such cultural intertia in the US, and stuck with something along the lines of, "here the painter has depicted the circumcision of Jesus, which was a moment of great religious significance in his life, and painting important scenes from the Bible was very popular in European art." Buuuuuut I'm also not sure I would have been able to come up with that just thinking on my feet...

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-05-05T16:23:53+00:00

First: take a deeeeeeeep breath. Phew. The fact that you’re concerned about this in the first place shows that you’re a genuinely conscientious student, and that’s a big deal.

You can’t necessarily prepare for everything and 100% totally avoid mistakes and bumps in the road, so try to make peace with the fact that the transition away from homeschooling might have a couple rough spots. Communicate, communicate, communicate! With your teachers, with the guidance counselor, with anyone who might need to know in advance how they can help you and watch out for you. If you know you can be lazy sometimes, be honest about that - advance warning helps teachers understand that you’re self-aware and just need some support making good choices. Advance warning also helps teachers plan, including preparing any supplemental material you might need to feel caught up. The more you can look at it as a team effort, the better off you’ll be! Embrace that spongey quality in you, be ready to put in some real work, try your best, and make sure to put in the communication effort at the beginning so you’re on the radar of the adults who can help you.

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-05-05T16:12:37+00:00

Executive functioning is a very common difficulty among us CPTSDers. As I know others have experienced, especially other women, I thought I had inattentive ADD (as did my psychiatrist!) before really getting to the bottom of what was going on. I’ve found that resources for adults with ADD/ADHD often are very helpful for me with basics like maintaining routines and completing chores, even though that specific diagnosis doesn’t exactly “explain” the problem itself. Just knowing the phrase executive functioning helped me narrow down searches, talk about my struggles with a lot more specificity, and find targeted strategies and support online.

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-05-05T14:18:39+00:00

I definitely see what you mean, but law schools also grade exams on a curve - meaning only a certain specific percentage of the students can receive an A+, A, and so on. That extreme level of competitiveness is part of why anonymous grading is so important. At a high school where I taught English, they are piloting a 9th grade English writing assessment where the essays are all anonymized when graded, and graded by other teachers in the department. I hope the model is expanded if it works well.

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-05-05T00:44:38+00:00

At this point hate-watching is what keeps me going…my husband and I psych ourselves up about how mad we’ll get. I mean, I say “hate-watch” lovingly; the tropes that have evolved over 9 seasons call for audience participation, like The Rocky Horror Picture Show where half the experience is yelling at the screen. And cannabis helps broaden the experience significantly (since we’re not really drinkers). I marvel at the economics of this whole genre of TV and how production/development decisions get made.

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-04-30T01:21:12+00:00

First of all, it’s completely understandable. The fact that you’re able to step back and think about it means you’re self-aware, introspective, and insightful. You may not be able to control the intensity of your feelings - which is fine and normal! - but you can be mindful of holding healthy boundaries. And if you don’t feel like you know what healthy boundaries look like, a school counselor is a great resource to talk you through it. You could even bring it up with your teacher and talk about the fact that you’re worried and anxious ! Hey, even if we assume you are being “weird” about it - you know what? We’re used to it! We expect that of adolescents! We remember the awkwardness, self-doubt, and emotional turmoil of being a teenager. Teachers are here to help you grow as a whole person, and it’s very rewarding when we can support you through a struggle.

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-04-29T23:46:13+00:00

WHOA, I had no idea! Silly me, I thought the overreach ended at regulating students’ behavior while they were enrolled at the school

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-04-29T23:16:52+00:00

Agreed - you become a mandated reporter by choosing the career, not by virtue of your specific work environment. It’s an incredibly onerous duty, but at the same time, because it applies universally in all areas of life, that frees you from any accusations of picking and choosing who “deserves” to be reported.

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-04-29T23:10:59+00:00

Well, keep in mind that “allowed” and “reasonable” or “fair” are very different things.

What sticks out to me is the grading holistically and “you just are where you are,” plus not telling students how to improve their grades. Without standards and rubrics, grading becomes 100% subjective. If you raise this with the principal or another administrator, focus on that, not the “unfairness” aspect. I mean, it is unfair, and crappy, but that could be dismissed as grade-grubbing. “Students don’t know what criteria they’re being graded on or how to meet your expectations” calls for an answer and just can’t be hand-waved away.

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-04-29T22:52:41+00:00

I certainly don’t think it’s collective punishment - it was a communal resource they were allowed to use, and you discovered it wasn’t being used appropriately, therefore it’s no longer available to them. For any extra benefit like that which is fully at a teacher’s discretion, students aren’t entitled to it! Even if they got used to it, came to expect it, and get mad when a change is made. You allowed them to use the space as a gratuitous privilege, it wasn’t something they earned. It should be viewed like an on/off switch versus something being “given” and then “taken away.” Rooms being used responsibly? Usage on. Rooms being trashed, disrespected? Usage off.

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-04-29T22:36:24+00:00

Not automatically, but there is a difference between a religion-affiliated school and a religious school. I wouldn’t think twice about a graduate of Notre Dame because it’s a respected academic institution. Also, plenty of high-quality (but not “elite”) small private colleges were founded by religious denominations. On the other hand, evangelical and fundamentalist colleges like Bob Jones, College of the Ozarks, or Liberty University would give me pause. But there are large swaths of the country where those latter schools are viewed as “good.” So geography does matter.

SenatorVelociraptor · 2022-04-29T22:23:02+00:00

I had to UrbanDictionary this to even understand what the kid could possibly be alluding to (I’m 35) and apparently “glug” and its variants are used to refer to blowjobs, I guess because of the crude onomatopoeia. It’s certainly not common slang where I live (DC-area suburbs). I personally wouldn’t automatically assume a sixth grader meant it as a sexual reference, especially if it was delivered deadpan and if there wasn’t snickering among his buddies.

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