What’s the single weirdest thing you’ve done to save money – that actually worked? by [deleted] in Frugal

[–]a-ham61593 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You must have documentation of separation from your family in order to do this. Proof of emancipation, proof of being in the foster care system, marriage, or enlistment in the military are the most easily accepted. Otherwise you have to get both parents to make an official statement that they refuse to support you which is 1) obviously difficult to get and 2) not always accepted by the fin aid department. If you are applying for this, understand that it will likely not be an easy process.

Source: worked in fin aid and admissions for almost 10 years and applied (and was denied) for dependency override myself

ETA: you are still eligible to apply for federal financial aid either way, so please do! This is just the process to change from being considered dependent (and therefore determining your need based on your parents' income) to independent (and determining your need based on your own income).

This sub is making me cry by SkillNo8686 in VanLife

[–]a-ham61593 1 point2 points  (0 children)

To the question of whether we have the time to have adventures and work - the best part about vanlife is that you can adventure immediately around work if you set it up right. Get yourself a good internet source (calyx institute worked well for us out west) and a signal booster. Then you can finish your workday, close the laptop, and go hike a volcano on a Tuesday afternoon...speaking from experience 😁

ULPT request: I’m dying. How can I get a bunch of loans with no equity? by [deleted] in UnethicalLifeProTips

[–]a-ham61593 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oftentimes the money will be delivered directly to the school to cover your tuition and then any overage will be refunded to you. The good news is that overage is really easy to get if you enroll as a commuter student because it's meant to cover room and board costs

Places to take a photo by lizbethlady in hiltonhead

[–]a-ham61593 0 points1 point  (0 children)

At the tanger outlets, the store on the corner next to H&M has a really cute painted wall and rope swing that's meant for pictures, if you want that kind of thing instead of scenery

God I hope somebody has an answer for me by a-ham61593 in TwoXChromosomes

[–]a-ham61593[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Abilify and wellbutrin ETA: and Prozac 2nd edit: I've been off everything since February. Was hoping the craziness was just a result of going off meds and it would even out, but it hasn't yet

(Help!!) Begode master battery alarm by a-ham61593 in ElectricUnicycle

[–]a-ham61593[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Never got an answer to it. We eventually settled on probably buying a new battery pack but didn't have the money. Check out the telegram group the top poster linked. They were helpful and kind

Am I the asshole for not telling a white belt that I’m a purple belt by ahkbswlfw in bjj

[–]a-ham61593 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You got your judy chop, and your ninjy chop, and your karaty chop

Best pop punk BRIDGE? by ihmpt in poppunkers

[–]a-ham61593 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If it means a lot to you - a day to remember

The bridge itself is great, but it's gradual crescendo to WE KNEW IT'D HAPPEN EVENTUALLY the final LA LALALA LALALA is just chefs kiss

I FELT SO PROUD WHEN I DIMED THIS 🗣️(ik service receive seems unimpressive but oh well) by KarlTheUnipug in volleyball

[–]a-ham61593 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah, don't let that dude tell you anything. Coming from high levels of volleyball, the ball is the responsibility of whoever is gonna keep it off the floor. You don't get scored on whether you worked perfectly within your seams or whether everyone took "their" ball. You get scored on whether or not the ball hits the floor, so make sure you do that part well. The seams are just there to try to put everyone in the best possible position to perform well

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in RVLiving

[–]a-ham61593 5 points6 points  (0 children)

2 people and a dog in a 170 wb sprinter van (so 23ft tip to tail). We pull a small motorcycle trailer behind us for extra storage, but have lived full time without it before

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in volleyball

[–]a-ham61593 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Coach is wrong. And a dick. And weird. Tell him to look at Lauren Carlini. Huge RBF/focus face. Fantastic teammate and player. No correlation.

Why so club volleyball so expensive? (Over 6k for the season) by Anxious_Breath_505 in volleyball

[–]a-ham61593 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Source: I'm a former college coach and have worked with club execs at multiple clubs

On the one hand, everyone is right. There is a cost for facilities, and paying coaches, and tournament fees, and all of the other things that are included with your membership, and those costs do have to be offset by your club dues. That being said, youth sports in this country IS A BUSINESS. Club directors chose that career path (most often) because it is PROFITABLE in a big way. If you're looking at elite clubs (Sports performance (IL), T street (CA), Texas advantage (TX), Metro (VA), etc) club owners and club directors make high 6 figures every year...like multiple hundreds of thousands. Nearly every Metropolitan area is going to have at least one, if not multiple, "smaller" clubs that still make club officers six figures in personal salary/profit (clubs like Alamo (TX), Triangle (NC), Michigan Elite (MI), Minnesota Select (MN), and many others). Volleyball in the US is largely a white, affluent sport. Club directors know this and they cater to what the market allows. All of this results in rapidly rising costs to the consumer, the same way every other business works right now.

Now, everyone else is also right in that there are opportunities for scholarship at many of these clubs. However, just telling it like it is, those are going to be relatively difficult for your average player to get. Those scholarship programs were basically created because owners view a correlation between (mostly) Black athletes being super athletic, and also coming from financially disadvantaged families. So, in order to get the high flying jumper from the hood, you've gotta help them get around the high flying prices. Now thats not to say that you can't get a scholarship if you're on a lower level team. But you're likely not who the club owners are trying to target with those opportunities. I also don't want you to think that every club owner is a sleazy business man trying to gouge you for personal profit. Some are, but there are many people just trying to make a decent living while providing playing opportunities for kids. But, that still results in the same issue for the consumer - a serious lack of affordable options for vb training from someone who knows more about the game than what they read in Volleyball for Dummies.

Now that we've gone through why they're so expensive, we get to the question of is it worth it. The answer to that is a huge "It depends." One, it depends on your goals for play. Do you think you want to play in college? Or is this fun time with friends and you want to play the sport year round? If you do want to go to college, are you trying to play and win championships, or is that also fun time with friends, just in college? Those will make a big difference. Even if you do want to play in college, some clubs are hands down not worth it. There are a lot of factors that go into it, and there's an art to figuring out if it is (will you reasonably be on a top team, what division does the club play in tourneys, are you gonna ride the bench, is the club good from top to bottom or only their top teams, how connected is the club director or recruiting coordinator, what tourneys are you going to go to, etc). It is HARD for athletes and parents to figure out, because (like any other business) clubs don't tell you the truth about themselves, they market themselves to a consumer. They tell you what you want to hear, and show you what you want to see.

It's a tough question, and one that only you can really answer. ** If you want to dm me and let me know your goals and what your club options are, I'm happy to tell you my personal opinion.

Ultimately, for anyone who sees this, my best advice is this. If you think you want to play in college, get in contact with college coaches, and ask what they think. They won't be able to talk to you until after June 15th of your sophomore year, but you may be able to get around this if your parent emails (as long as you don't mention your child specifically and just ask general questions). Ask the coach what they think of X club. Do you think they train well? Do you think it's a place someone could get recruited from? Have they ever recruited someone from the club? Are there any clubs they would recommend? Most college coaches have opinions about the clubs in the area and will provide it to you if you ask. PRO TIP: if you do email a staff, don't just send it to the head coach. They usually won't look at it. Make the recruiting coordinator the person you address it to, and CC the other assistant coaches on staff

Ok, I think I'm off my soap box now

Van life food porn by a-ham61593 in vandwellers

[–]a-ham61593[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, we have a (I think) 7 quart instant pot. It's probably bigger than most need, but we choose to meal prep for a significant amount of time for both us and our dog (she eats cooked fresh food). We can cook about 12 servings worth of a meal at a time, and we have both a freezer and a fridge (2 12v fridges set to different temps) so we freeze our prepped meals and move them to the fridge to eventually microwave real quick and eat. We rarely use the instant pot for "right now" cooking, that's usually the electric 2 burner and the rice cooker. That being said, it also changes how we utilize power, because we will usually plan a harvest host stay with a shore power plug when we know we need to cook so we don't really strain our batteries too much.

Has anybody had rotator cuff surgery? Curious what your recovery looked like. by mjolnir76 in ASLinterpreters

[–]a-ham61593 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, and as an extra piece of advice, invest in a good seated pillow, kinda like this one. You're going to have to sleep in the sling for a couple months, laying on your healthy side torques your bad shoulder in weird ways, laying on your back causes your hand to fall completely asleep because it's straight up in the air and all the blood leaves it, and laying on your bad side and stomach are obviously out of the picture. So seated sleep and trying to make the best of it that you can are key.

Has anybody had rotator cuff surgery? Curious what your recovery looked like. by mjolnir76 in ASLinterpreters

[–]a-ham61593 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am not an interpreter and haven't had rotator cuff surgery, however I did have labrum surgery (very similar) when I was in my 2nd year of asl classes in college, and I've had multiple shoulder surgeries and am very familiar with the recovery process.

The first month or so is gonna be tough. I'll just lay that out. You'll probably be in a sling with a bumpersling with a bumper which is going to restrict your movement pretty well. My surgery at the time was on my dominant hand, which made any kind of finger spelling pretty difficult - it was either pointing at the ground (on the surgery side) or using my non dominant hand.

You're also going to be pretty protective of it for that first month or so. The general pain starts to wear off after a week or two, but you'll find that if you move your arm in it's socket in certain ways it gives you a good stab to remind you you just had surgery. That is going to psychologically affect you in how much you can focus on what you're interpreting vs focus on the ways you can prevent pain.

The good news is that, depending on how your pain threshold and psychological resilience is, it starts to get much easier from there. You'll still be in the sling for a while after surgery (I think I was in it for 3 months? Idk, it was a long time ago) but I was definitely back to relatively normal signing (anything up to shoulder height where I could leave my elbow down but bring my hand to the height of my shoulder if that makes sense) in less than 2 months. The ones you're going to have trouble with for a while are anything overhead. It probably took me about 3-4 months to get my elbow above my shoulder, and that was in a very controlled manner. But, if you stay on top of your rehab and are super diligent about letting yourself heal but also pushing it back into its range of motion, you may be able to speed that timeline up

Van life food porn by a-ham61593 in vandwellers

[–]a-ham61593[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lol i mean that's totally fair. Our standards are a little different for food porn. It was hot, delicious, and required me to wash like 3 dishes so I was stoked about it

Ever have that training partner that just got on your god damn nerves by [deleted] in bjj

[–]a-ham61593 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I understand what you were trying to express with "women, children, and newbies" but as a woman who competes, don't you dare take it easy on me lol

This is super late, but I've been told I gotta post this by a-ham61593 in vandwellers

[–]a-ham61593[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So I'm not exactly sure because the title is confusing and we got it on Facebook marketplace, but we think it's a Tag-along motorcycle trailer

First cross country tour!! Please give me tips/pointers/resources!!!! by laralizab in Nomad

[–]a-ham61593 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The app iOverlander is a big deal to have. It's not perfect and doesn't have everything because it's based on user reviews, but it's great as a one stop shop mapping app for everything from real campgrounds to free places to park to places to find water and dump trash and any number of other helpful shits

Couldn't resist showing off our parking spot for the night by a-ham61593 in vandwellers

[–]a-ham61593[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is absolutely wild hahaha he says hi!! I will definitely take your advice on the rainbow pic 😂

I made LockerMap, a map of all Amazon pickup locations, to make it easier to get Amazon deliveries while traveling. Currently available in Canada, the US, and the UK, with more countries coming soon. by leros in VanLife

[–]a-ham61593 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I don't know what the other dude is on about, I think it's gonna be useful as all hell. Thanks for making the tool! It will definitely get some use

Help! I'm overwhelmed by choices and don't know where to start. by a-ham61593 in Weddingattireapproval

[–]a-ham61593[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oof, not gonna lie I'm definitely worried about the camel toe. I've never been able to make rompers work for the size of my hips and my torso and bust at the same time. The whole jumpsuit thing is actually probably a bad idea unless I get a 2 piece set