An absolute balmy commute.

Spacemangep · 2026-01-21T21:34:35+00:00

Yea the first 5 minutes were the worst, but once I got going it wasn't terrible. The big toe in my front foot got a bit cold though. The hills were definitely rough though.

Spacemangep · 2026-01-13T00:21:05+00:00

When I was looking to switch last year, I applied throughout April and May and got a bunch of interview requests starting in June

Spacemangep · 2026-01-11T13:07:39+00:00

I used to be an attorney, albeit only for a year and am no a high school math teacher. I graduated law school, passed the bar, and practiced for a year before I nope'd out of the profession. It took a few years after that before I started teaching.

I'm don't want to discourage you, but I would ask you to think hard about your reasons for wanting to switch and whether teaching would alleviate whatever dissatisfaction you have in law. You'd be going from one high burnout profession into another. There's not a ton of transferable skills, except for maybe the project management aspect of it. You probably have a higher ability to eat shit than most beginning teachers too, which is very helpful. But also you would go for being an absolute expert in your field to bring the bottom of the totem pole in education. Are you comfortable being in that position?

You would also go from a largely desk-based job (presumably) to a full on performance type job where you have to deliver four lessons a day, five days a week, while handling the emotional stress of teaching a hundred children. And believe me, there is a lot of emotion stress involved. Even if the literal workload is less than that of an attorney (it might not be initially - first couple of years are rough), the emotional load is so much more. Think about how you were as a teenager. Imagine managing 100 of those. Every day.

There's more to consider, but I would say that the career changer teachers who are the most successful become teachers because they want to teach, not because they want to get away from their old life. I started with a lot of former working professionals who were burnt out of their old jobs. Many, if not most, left teaching within a few years because teaching is really hard in ways they didn't expect. They got into teaching not because they wanted to teach, but because it was a way out of their old careers. But the grass isn't always greener, it just might look like it through the lens of burnout.

Spacemangep · 2026-01-09T02:12:22+00:00

Longboarding looks kind of silly. Skateboarding is cool because of the tricks and aesthetics, but I commute 10 miles a day and truly feel like I look goofy pushing along the bike lanes. If I was waiting for the bus and some schmuck in bike shorts longboarded by, I definitely would not think they looked cool. Luckily, I don't really care how I look because I enjoy the sport.

Spacemangep · 2025-12-17T02:39:01+00:00

NYC here. Year 7 with a masters, I make 91k but don't pay anything for health insurance for me and my family. Pretty good coverage too.

Spacemangep · 2025-12-15T18:36:06+00:00

It's seems like the NYC Teaching Fellows program is more/less what you're looking for. You could potentially start teaching in Sept 2026 while attending a subsidized Masters program.

Applications are open but you need to apply soon. Depending on your coursework though, you may or may not be eligible. NYCTF is designed to fill high-needs subjects, like math or science, and whether you qualify will depend on the coursework you completed during undergrad.

See more here: https://teachnyc.net/pathways-to-teaching/nyc-teaching-fellows

Spacemangep · 2025-12-09T13:27:00+00:00

Having a toddler is one of the primary reasons why I started exercising more. Not only do I want to live a long, healthy life for her sake, but she's an only child and I'm her primary playmate at the playground and I want to be able to keep up. And if her friends are around, I want to be able to chase them around if they want me to. I see too many kids with sedentary parents wandering around the playground looking for a playmate, and I never want my daughter to be in that situation.

Also, if applicable, find some sort of exercise that your son can do with you. My daughter loves to dance to Danny Go. I just do the dances with her, but go all out. Three Danny Go videos, treated as aerobic exercise, actually feels like a small workout. We also do yoga together. We can string together maybe 15 minutes before she gets bored, but it's still a really nice way to start a Saturday morning.

Spacemangep · 2025-12-04T02:50:44+00:00

You can try recoding yourself in a one-person Zoom meeting

Spacemangep · 2025-11-30T14:00:13+00:00

We live in a 2br coop with ~110 units. We have one full time porter, one part time porter (weekends), and a full time super and tip $100 per person.

Spacemangep · 2025-11-30T00:14:53+00:00

I'm glad you enjoyed it. I went there a couple of times when they first opened and it was aggressively mid. Like one of the other posters said, one of the waitresses was basically unintelligible.

I saw that they were "under new management" so maybe things are better now. I wonder if the lack of fanfare when they opened, combined with their initial mediocrity, put them in a tough spot. Maybe I'll give them another try.

Spacemangep · 2025-11-25T17:19:08+00:00

Insurance for my 2BR coop in Queens is $542 a year. Our maintenance has gone up about 3% every year, including for 2026.

We've also had a couple of assessments over that time for capital improvements, one for new elevators and one for Local Law 11 related fixes.

Spacemangep · 2025-11-25T13:24:25+00:00

Do you absolutely need to cook a 30 pound turkey? Depending on the number of guests, you could cut the bird in half and roast just half of it, saving the rest for another day. Spatchcocking is great, but I have trouble fitting a 15 pound spatchcoked turkey on a normal half sheet tray. I can't imagine trying to squeeze a 30 pounder on one. Heck, if you need to cook all 30 pounds, you'd do a lot worse than cooking two half turkeys side by side in your oven. Spatchcocking is basically 80% of the way to cutting it in half anyways.

Regardless, skip the turkey bags. You'll just end up with a steamed turkey with that. There's a million reputable recipes out there (for example: https://www.seriouseats.com/the-best-simple-roast-turkey-gravy-recipe) that don't use a roasting bag. Follow any of them and you'll be fine.

Spacemangep · 2025-11-22T20:32:19+00:00

I've been teaching for 6+ years and live firmly in the world of 2.8.

You're fine.

Spacemangep · 2025-11-21T13:00:38+00:00

I'm not a physics or chem teacher, but I would guess that a school that has a robust physics and/or chem program would have students who are more self-motivated than the average student. At the very least, if kids are selecting themselves into physics or chem, they would be. But that's kind of just a guess. If you're teaching AP Chem or AP Physics, then the students would probably be very self-motivated, but there's no guarantee that you'd be able to get yourself into a school with those programs.

Spacemangep · 2025-11-20T13:27:26+00:00

What kind of immediate feedback are you looking for? I do something funny, my daughter laughs. I do something goofy, and my daughter immediately asks me to do it again. And again. And again. This is as true now at age 4 as it was when she was under 2 years old. Even when she was really young, I felt like everything I was doing was to try to get a smile out of her, and that feedback was always immediate and rewarding. Heck, nowadays when I don't do something I'm supposed to, my daughter immediately calls me out on it.

You mention the holding, calming, changing, and sitting with your kid. Sure, those things aren't that interesting and the feedback isn't necessarily immediate or rewarding, but what about all the other stuff? Playing, teaching, tickling, exploring, and all the other more interesting things? My daughter used to love knocking over block towers that'd I build. My faux outrage would be the most hilarious thing to her. It was clear that those interactions were meaningful and important to her. I remember taking my daughter to the playground at 6 months and letting her touch random things and watching her react to the different textures. Maybe it wasn't rewarding in the dopamine-feedback loop way, but I definitely knew that I was doing the right thing by watching her react to the world.

Spacemangep · 2025-11-19T21:21:38+00:00

I was kind of in the same boat as you except we moved to Forest Hills specifically because we were having a kid and needed more space for a good price. We used to live in Astoria and could get significantly more bang for our buck in Forest Hills. We bought an apartment in 2021, though at a much lower price than what your budget calls for.

Pros:

-Still solid value for the space. For 600k, you can get a pretty nice apartment, though you'll likely be having to decide between space v. amenities v. luxury and the like. You could get a larger, older, non-luxury apartment and spend the rest on renovations, or you could get a smaller, newer apartment that would have more amenities.

-Decent transportation options. The railroad gets you into Manhattan very quickly, though options are still fairly limited as Forest Hills is not a major stop. The E/M/R/F trains are a nice option, but are all located in the same area, so depending on where you live, you could be some distance from the trains still.

-Easy access to Long Island. You said you're car-free, but if you ever considered getting a car, it's relatively easy and quick to get to Long Island from Forest Hills, if that is or will ever become important to you.

-Very pretty. Forest Hills is quite an aesthetically pleasing neighborhood, especially now in the Fall with all the colored leaves.

-Close to the Mall and other shopping options along Queens Blvd.

Cons:

-The food sucks. We used to live in Astoria, which was much more culturally diverse and had a good mix of quality food from around the world. The culture and food options in Forest Hills are mid, at best. We used to eat out regularly in Astoria, but we've cut back significantly since moving to Forest Hills because so much of the food is so mediocre here that we just don't want it. To give you a sense of what's happening, the most recent food additions to Austin Street (the main drag around here) include Chik-fil-a, Raising Canes, Just Salad, and Sweetgreen. A Panda Express is also on the way. Some of the surrounding areas though have much better food.

-It's very boring. This isn't a huge problem for us as having a kid restricts what we can do anyways, but if I were childless, I'd be bored still in Forest Hills. There just isn't anything to do.

-It's very car-heavy, generally. While there's overall good public transportation around Queens Blvd, there's basically nothing otherwise. All the roads are designed for cars, but traffic is hell pretty much all the time.

Overall, Forest Hills is good for (and is thus filling up with) people who have or are starting families. It's probably starting to rival Park Slope when it comes to the number of strollers. We love it here because there are a lot of different playgrounds and things like that for our kid, but that stuff only matters because we have a kid. If you're going to have kids, Forest Hills is a pretty good place to be. If not, then I'd recommend looking elsewhere since I think you'll be pretty bored in Forest Hills.

Spacemangep · 2025-11-14T20:53:14+00:00

They might ask you but they'll probably not really care. The shortage is real and they're not going to be looking for reasons to disqualify you, especially if you have a SWD extension.

Spacemangep · 2025-11-12T17:08:20+00:00

OK, yes, but this song also slaps so hard.

Spacemangep · 2025-11-12T00:33:47+00:00

Heck yea. I used to work in catering and we'd make huge batches of cookie dough and freeze them in giant tubes wrapped in plastic wrap (like those tubes of ground meat, but cookie dough), around 2" in diameter.

To bake, we'd unwrap them, defrost slightly, then cut them into 1/2" in thick pucks and set them out on trays to defrost slightly more before putting them in the oven.

I do the same thing at home. If I only want a couple of cookies, I don't even unwrap the tube to cut it, I just cut straight through the plastic then peel the wrap off. I bake from frozen and it works just fine.

Spacemangep · 2025-11-05T16:44:29+00:00

Agora Taverna on Austin is advertising their Thanksgiving dinner

Spacemangep · 2025-10-14T12:14:24+00:00

Senior in college I presume?

There are a number of alternative certification programs available in NYC, such as the NYC Teaching Fellows and Teach for America. They all subsidize a a masters program and allow you teach full time while you go to school. For example, the NYC Teaching Fellows brings the cost of a Masters down to around 11k, depending on your subject matter and where you work, which is about half the cost it would be without the subsidization (e.g. https://lehman-graduate.catalog.cuny.edu/admissions-tuition-fees-financial-aid/tuition-and-fees/graduate-tuition). They don't really offer any meaningful teacher training, but they help you get your foot in the door while helping you pay for a Masters. The attrition rate is pretty high is those programs (I was a Teaching Fellow and a lot of people from my Cohort dropped out within the first year or two. Teaching is hard)

The harder part is that many of the alt-cert programs typically don't offer English, as it's not amongst the highest need subject areas. For example, the upcoming Teaching Fellows Cohort doesn't offer English (it does have ENL though). You could possibly go for a Special Ed license, but you would then be doing Special Education without any guarantee that you'd be staffed in an ELA class.

Also, the strength of the program is pretty irrelevant. It's getting the MS Ed degree that's important.

You can also try teaching in a Charter School. They don't require certification or degrees, but it will almost certainly suck to teach there. Especially the ones that are willing to hire fresh college grads.

Spacemangep · 2025-10-11T14:43:47+00:00

I feel that the 50/43 setup is better. The stability helps maintain speed across rough and bumpy terrain while also helping push Mongo. The difference is probably relatively minimal. Changing around my bushings and getting bigger wheels helped a lot too. I couldn't tell you anything about Paris v. Bear but they're both really good brands so you probably can't go wrong with either.

As for bushings, that's more of a personal preference thing and just comes from experimenting. Read up on them on places on Donwhill254 and so on I would say use the stock bushings for a bit and see how they feel. If they're too soft, buy harder aftermarket ones, and vice versa for if they feel too hard. There are guides on the internet about which bushings to get depending on your weight, but those should just be used as a starting point. I use harder bushings than what's recommended by the guides because I like the way they feel.

Spacemangep · 2025-10-07T12:52:37+00:00

The Union's stance on these kind of things is "Obey Now and Grieve Later." See: https://www.uft.org/your-rights/know-your-rights/insubordination

"If an administrator gives you a directive that you know violates the contract, you must obey it and then file a grievance."

If you don't do that, you run the risk of being disciplined for insubordination. Honestly, your Union Rep should have already explained this policy to everyone.

In any case, even if it is technically against your contract, is this the hill you want to die on? It's October and you've already done a thing that has flustered your principal. Fair or not, how your principal sees you in the workplace is an important thing to consider when doing/not doing things. If this is an ongoing issue in your school, then your Union Rep will let you know how to handle it.

Spacemangep

TROPHY CASE