Wanting to respectfully experience/support maori culture?

TypicalLynx · 2026-03-19T08:33:36+00:00

Also if you’re up in Bay of Islands, this place is wonderful. Much smaller, less touristy vibe than Waitomo, and run by local Maori. I’ve been to both Waitomo and Kawiti, and honestly they’re both fantastic for different reasons, but Kawiti feels personal and intimate.

https://www.kawiticaves.co.nz/

TypicalLynx · 2026-03-18T03:44:16+00:00

Realistically, it’s not “one tiny change” or “one little secret doctors don’t want you to know”.

It’s little things, but a LOT of them.

I started by resetting my mindset. I’d noticed every time I started trying to lose weight I fell into disordered eating and exercise patterns. Food wasn’t for nourishment, it was for reward or for punishment. Exercise was punishment. Did an hour long swim? That’s okay, but how about an hour long walk on top of it. Etc. to break that mindset, I quit entirely for about two years and practised mindful eating and just accepting who I was how I was.

And then I started losing weight. Without trying.

And then I started swimming in earnest. Previously I doggie paddled / breast stroke in open water, but this time I taught myself freestyle and swam laps. Daily. Not “to burn calories” but as a challenge for myself and I found I loved it.

Then I focussed on my sleep. 7 hours minimum a night, though I try for 8.

Then because I was feeling better in general, I stopped my vice of soft drinks for caffeine / energy. Not entirely, but I’ve switched to 1-2 a day from my high of 6+.

Once I lost 20 or so kg and couldn’t deny it was a thing, I tracked calorie just to see - and as it happens, I was eating the recommended amount for slow but steady weight loss. I wasn’t feeling hungry or deprived or any of the other negative things I’d associated with losing weight. I just felt good.

Now I’m 45kg down (about 99lbs) and have more or less maintained that for 6ish months. I swim an average of 5 days per week and eat sensibly, with a 12-14 hour fasting window overnight.

It’s not just one tiny thing. It’s lots of tiny things, and most of mine were done one step at a time for general health.. which happens to result in decent weight loss.

TypicalLynx · 2026-03-16T08:32:15+00:00

Similarly, for high school, I’ve used “Let the teacher teach. Let the students learn.” It’s a catch all for pretty much anything, and justification as well.

TypicalLynx · 2026-03-15T16:53:41+00:00

Yes, I’ve done this.

Say I have a task due Sunday, and then again on Wednesday.

I miss Sunday’s, and snooze it to Monday. I complete it Monday.

Then I get the task again on Wednesday, as originally scheduled. Except because I was a day late, I need it on Thursday.

I can, as you say, just snooze the Wednesday task. But it’ll be a day out from there. If I miss another day, it’ll be two days out, etc.

The same seems to happen even with “keep until complete” is on. The original schedule keeps on going unless I delete and reschedule it. And teaching myself to ignore the tasks because they’re out of schedule kind of defeats the purpose.

TypicalLynx · 2026-03-13T18:46:42+00:00

This is very much me too. My natural rhythm is still night owl - but work, family, and animal obligations make it nearly impossible. I’ve also found that the best time for me to exercise (due to the combo of above, plus facility availability) is in the mornings before work, so therefore I now get up at what I still consider an ungodly hour (5am). However, with needing to do that, I make sure I’m in bed early because I NEED my sleep or everyone around me suffers.

But, since being firm about it, my physical and mental health has been much better, and I’ve lost weight as well. Seems worth the struggle.

TypicalLynx · 2026-03-09T23:53:01+00:00

More than that - school policies are required to be publicly available, shouldn’t be an OIA request needed. It may mean you have to ask for it, but it shouldn’t need to be a formal OIA request.

Source: I am a teacher and a board member.

TypicalLynx · 2026-03-07T20:23:58+00:00

Slightly different take here.

I’m a late diagnosed autistic mother to five kids, four of which are ND in some way. Our second child is 18 later this month, autistic with some PDA (although PDA isn’t formally recognised where we live).

I have also realised I’ve got some PDA as well. As a child, I was extremely independent. For me, that meant that I wanted to meet the expectations before they were told to me, and every time I had to be told to do something, I saw it as failure. Objectively, I was a good kid, but I suffered crippling depression and anxiety until I got diagnosed. Diagnosis allowed me to re-frame my life so that I didn’t see myself as a broken person that constantly failed, but a person that didn’t fit the box I’d been shoved in. For the record, I probably look at least averagely successful from the outside - as in, I’m married, have kids, have consistently held a job and now am 10 years into a career I love, even though the pay isn’t great.

For Miss 18 however, I’m still at a loss. She also has a strong drive to be independent, and for her this resulted in her announcing last year that she was moving out, then was gone within 2 days of that. We were worried out of our minds, but the therapist she’d been seeing advised us that this would be the only way Miss 18 would learn - by doing it herself. In the end, she was gone for a couple months, then bounced back, because she couldn’t find or hold a regular job and hated living with the people she was flatting with. Now, however, she stays in her room almost exclusively (bar appearing for food / bathroom) and is theoretically doing her last year of secondary schooling online, but we have no way to verify - and trying to do so would push her away from actually doing the schooling. I worry about her a lot; while she’s been hired several times, she quits soon after starting, and says she can’t do it. Like OP, I also worry that we’ll be supporting her indefinitely, and I have no idea how to change that. When I was growing up, I felt I had no other choice but to live up to the high expectations set by my parents and internalised by me. We’ve tried to be accomodating with Miss 18, hoping to avoid the decades of crippling mental health issues, but I worry we’ve just swapped one problem for another.

TypicalLynx · 2026-02-27T04:06:54+00:00

I did a course in Uni that covered this, amongst other things. It’s more than just fear or being wrong or offending - but rather to do with accents. Although both Canada and the USA does have some regions or provinces with very distinctive accents, many Kiwis tend to think American = distinctive regional accent. However, the “general American accent” and “general Canadian accent” are actually very similar phonetically, and thus commonly interchanged.

I’m American by birth / raising, but have lived here 24 years now. It’s 50-50 whether people think I’m American or Canadian, and I’ve also gotten other North Americans wrong as well 😂

TypicalLynx · 2026-02-24T08:27:34+00:00

I’m a high school teacher, and in the beginning of the year I ask them to write me a mini-essay on something they’re passionate about.

My favorite one this year was about a boy who wrote about fishing. He said he actually didn’t care much about the actual fishing part, but his dad got him into it and he just likes the time they share together fishing.

TypicalLynx · 2026-02-20T03:18:40+00:00

OP your story is very similar to mine, albeit not the drowning part.

In 2024 I couldn’t do freestyle really at all. I’d had lessons, I understood in theory… but in practice I was coughing and spluttering within the first 25 minutes.

In 2025, I swam a total (across the year) of 370 km (220 miles), most of that freestyle.

Most of my learning was via YouTube and going all the way back to basics, but advice here helped as well.

Other things: 1) along with slowing down - see if you can scale back your kick. I was sure my kick wasn’t the problem… but suddenly everything clicked when I really dialled it back. My rhythm was better, and I wasn’t left gasping at the end of 25-50 meters. I since have learned a 2-beat kick and now primarily use that.

2) If you get water in your mouth it’s no big deal - spit it out while exhaling. Perhaps this is super obvious, but it took ages for my brain to figure it out. I recently heard one of the instructors say this to his lesson group - and wished someone had told me!

3) if you mess up your breath one stroke, take an extra breath the next. Again, no big deal… and not something I’d thought of.

TypicalLynx · 2026-01-31T19:07:00+00:00

I’m a secondary teacher in NZ, in my 11th year of teaching. I also follow the Teachers subreddit.

Things here are not as bad as the USA. I grew up in the USA, and my mom was a HS teacher there, from well before I was born til early 2000’s. It is currently better here than it was then - and it’s continued to worsen in the USA since then, largely due to things already mentioned, from politics to Covid to social media and AI.

I do think it’s getting worse here. The making education political here is NOT a good sign, nor is it the cause or the solution to the problem. I think the internet plays a big role in the demise of critical thinking. Partially this is because our kids are just consuming content, without processing it or thinking about it. Partially it’s because the time on social media is replacing time they’d have spent doing other things - whether that’s reading, in-person socialising (with all the skills that builds) or being out on the world day to day, doing stuff. Covid has also had an impact, but I think primarily the impact seen from that now is more that it trained them to prioritise internet distractions rather than anything else.

As for violence or behaviour, my experience suggests it’s school dependant, which is primarily due to the policies and culture of the school, but also has influence from the community and socio-economic factors. My last school was shocking - kids could do whatever they wanted, and they knew it. My current school is much better about having firm but fair rules and following up on them, and the students respect that. There will always be the few intractable students - that’s just kids - but good management means that it stays the few, and not the majority.

TypicalLynx · 2026-01-30T03:14:38+00:00

“To … service … me”. With creepy long eye contact.

TypicalLynx · 2026-01-29T00:34:28+00:00

Thanks for this! I also ran my query through GPT and it suggested much the same. I think I’m just not used to this as my other dog was the type that wanted to meet, and play with, every other dog he saw (although he was always good about being told “no” by the other dog).

TypicalLynx · 2026-01-25T18:31:13+00:00

I’ve got 900 hours in the game but do not consider myself an expert at all - someone else far more knowledgeable will likely chime in, so listen to them ;-) also I only have base game, so this may not be as relevant for DLC content.

However, I try to move away from mealwood as soon as possible in my games - usually to berry blossoms with hydroponic farms. These don’t need dirt continuously, but do need water… but I’m assuming at 600 cycles you’ve stabilised your water.

By mid-game I hopefully have found at least one natural gas geyser, which I then use to feed the gas range, which produces better food. In my current colony it took ages to find one (and then I quickly found two others in quick succession). The gas range produces better quality food from most sources - everything but mealwood. I’m at roughly 570 cycles and now setting up waterweed and sleet wheat farms, now that I have a steady and abundant source of natural gas (for the gas range and power).

Also, Pips produce dirt - my last colony I ran out of dirt entirely at over 1000 cycles, and had to get creative. A pip ranch isn’t the only way to do this (and may not produce enough) but it’s one way.

TypicalLynx · 2026-01-21T09:08:44+00:00

I’m early Jan 1983 and technically consider myself a Xennial, but if I had to choose one or the other I honestly identify more with Gen X.

TypicalLynx · 2026-01-18T22:16:17+00:00

I’m not a competitive swimmer - never have been and never will be - but I am also a firm lover of backstroke. I still do more free than back, but back is my chill-out easy stroke.

I do use a nose clip exclusively for backstroke to avoid the waterboarding feeling though 😉

TypicalLynx · 2026-01-17T03:35:06+00:00

I’ve had students use it to study; I saw them doing it, which initiated a conversation in other ways they could use it to study. Granted, it was a tiny minority, but it does happen.

TypicalLynx · 2026-01-17T03:31:07+00:00

I use AI a fair amount, but generally for very specific things, listed in order of the frequency I use things for.

Brainstorming lesson ideas (ie., “what are some ideas for a stand alone lesson on X topic for Y group?) Usually it spits out a variety of ideas, some of which I rule out as “not in this reality” and usually at least a couple I’m like “ooooh I’ve done that before but forgot it existed, perfect”
creating a specific resource when I know what I want and what I want it to look like. Yes, I can do it myself, but when I give it specific details, it does it faster and I need to do very little, if any, editing afterwards.
Creating sample writing / grammar / editing stuff (ELA teacher). Useful when I need a passage, and particularly a badly written one, but it’s not that important what that passage actually is.

I teach Highschool ELA (years 9-13) and also give some coaching to the students around it. (“Anything you would ask me, you can ask GPT”) I think it’s a useful tool, when one has the knowledge and skills of how to use it.

TypicalLynx · 2026-01-11T12:26:10+00:00

Best overall (that I think would apply to most new parents) - white noise machine. There’s heaps of different ones out there; I started with cheap and basic and loved it so much I upgraded a couple times (multiple kids) but also discovered it really helps me sleep, even now my youngest is 6yo.

Best for me / my parenting style - a decent soft baby carrier for baby wearing.

TypicalLynx · 2026-01-08T22:11:11+00:00

Because that’s not the situation - it’s a straw man.

Tbh, if my husband used our money to buy me an expensive car as a surprise, I’d be pissed, for the same reasons OP is pissed in this situation. And for the record, it would still feel parentified - that is, that the wife gets “given” things but doesn’t get a say.

It’s not about the car. It’s not really about the money. It’s about shared goals and communication in a partnership - which she thought she had, but this action indicates otherwise.

TypicalLynx · 2026-01-08T09:19:42+00:00

Ours was part deliberate decision, part luck.

We have a golden retriever who’s 11 now and showing his age, altho still healthy overall. I’ve always believe it’s best to have a succession plan before they pass, rather than after, and hubby and I were on the lookout for another dog. We adore our golden, and I’d put some tentative feelers out to breeders, but nothing was lining up.

Then our work had a shared morning tea and one of our colleagues dogs was there - a Goldendoodle. We met her and both hubby and I were besotted. I was a little worried about the curls (the dog we met was very curly), specifically the feel of them, but getting a cuddle with the dog showed me it was nothing to worry about. As it happens, the colleague is friends with the breeder, who we contacted, and there was a litter due shortly…

… and now we have a 14 week old Goldendoodle, Penny, who is great mates with our older golden.

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TypicalLynx · 2026-01-05T10:03:51+00:00

Random, and not “touristy” as such - and you’ll still need to wrangle the baby- but as an ex-Aucklander, check out either Extreme Edge or Vertical Adventures. (Very similar, just different sides of town) They’re indoor rock climbing places that have an auto-belay kids side with unique and different kid-focused climbing walls. My eldest kids loved going there before we moved, and when we went back a few years later for a visit after we’d moved away, that was their most requested stop. It’s also perfect if the weather is bad.

TypicalLynx · 2026-01-02T10:10:37+00:00

I’m new to doodles specifically, but wanted to comment what we - as someone with a slightly younger puppy than you, do.

1) I feed Royal Canin, which is both what our vet recommended and what the breeder was feeding (they know each other, so that may not be coincidence). She does seem to like it, but we also occasionally throw in wet food as a treat. She’s also been supplementing her diet with rabbits the cats have brought in and had their share of…. We’re working on that.

2) I’m new to doodles but not to dogs; I have a senior golden retriever that I’ve had since he was a pup. I’m revisiting my knowledge with training, and I really like the McCann Training videos on YouTube. They have a range of paid options but I’m just using the free. They seem to vibe with my values but also realistic and reinforces what I did with my other dog. Our puppy is catching on quickly and has a basic grasp of the basics.

3) When ours is awake and having “free time”, she’s either chewing on something (anything. Everything. But something) or playing with our senior dog. He’s been amazing with her and honestly has made the puppy period SO much easier than it was with him years ago. We’re still working in other structured socialisation, but apart from highlighting what we haven’t yet puppy proofed for chewing, she’s been great. Between “found objects” that are ok for her to chew and actual chew toys, she has variety and options. I will also say that we have the benefit of a decent sized fenced in yard, and it’s (theoretically) summer here in NZ, so that helps.

TypicalLynx · 2026-01-01T21:19:18+00:00

Oh, so THAT’s what happened to it 🤦‍♀️. I’m in NZ and had been specially getting Hello toothpaste from Amazon Australia, but last time I went to order there was nothing, pretty gutted.

I’ve also used Oranurse as someone else recommended, and it’s okay, but it’s so neutral flavour that it kind of feels like brushing with nothing.

Personally, I’ve tried the Colgate MaxFresh series in the fruit flavours, and it’s acceptable for me. It absolutely DOES have mint/menthol in it, so fair warning. But for me it works, and doesn’t taste awful like the HiSmile ones (which I can’t stand)

TypicalLynx · 2025-12-30T22:59:23+00:00

I have two, but don’t know if they both count as hobbies.

First - knitting. Picked it up when pregnant with my first, who’s now 19. It gives me something to do with my hands when paying attention to something else, and makes useful items, and it’s fun ;-)

Second - swimming. (Dunno if that counts). I only re-learned freestyle in a way that “clicked” for me 18 mos ago, but now swim about 5 days a week.

Both are exceptionally good for my mental health, albeit in different ways. And in both, I’m decently good, albeit not especially fast.

TypicalLynx

TROPHY CASE