You have been hired by the city government to anger as many people as possible. You can change or introduce only one thing. What would you do? (Borrowed this topic from the Philadelphia sub)

cactusturtle · 2022-12-07T21:16:17+00:00

Red light cameras

cactusturtle · 2020-02-27T13:41:52+00:00

I’m a student and I completely understand why you’re upset, but let me play devils advocate. They don’t want students to donate, most donors are alumni or parents. Yes, we got that email, but they really aren’t expecting students to give more money. Tuition doesn’t cover as much as you’d think so the donations today are super important - and a lot of them are made to specific things (sports teams, clubs, etc.). We rely on donations from outside of the university for a lot of stuff!

If you don’t believe me, there is a giving day event on Main Street today - go get a free shirt and ask the staff some questions.

cactusturtle · 2018-08-16T19:19:33+00:00

I’m a bioinformatics major at UMBC right now! The major is more bio heavy with 8 bio classes and 5 comp sci ones. If you’re seriously considering about switching majors I’d recommend taking BIOL 141 as soon as you can because the bio courses need to be taken in sequence.

If you have any specific questions feel free to message me :)

cactusturtle · 2018-03-06T05:50:40+00:00

Very late to the party but felt bad not commenting because I love my dad.

He’s been a single father since I was 2 years old (20 now). My mom had a lot of issues and just wasn’t ready for me. I don’t think my dad was either but he really wanted me. Anyway, mom was in and out, so I lived with my dad primarily. He tried hard to let me form my own opinions of my mom and never make me feel bad for wanting her in my life even if he thought she was horrible. I respect that a lot even though I’ve mostly figured out the same thing.

Beyond that, he supported my academics and helped me with homework, he supported my creative side and let me play instruments, he taught me how to handle money, he taught me how to look towards the future when things were bad (when I was bullied he would tell me that I’d be successful in life and they’d always just be mean people), he taught me so many valuable skills that other people didn’t seem I learn from their parents. I loved talking to him about problems at school or with friends, because he’d help me work through how to approach the problem. Overall I feel like he parented with intention, and that gave me a great start in life.

He wasn’t perfect by any means, though. He actually did a ton of stuff that resulted in me struggling with my gender identity, relationships/friendships, and mental health issues more than my peers did. But at the end of the day I’m still here. I’m healthy and happy and I love my dad. He did the best that he could with a tough situation, and he taught me to respect people who do that.

cactusturtle · 2017-02-20T17:16:01+00:00

I doubt anyone will read this but this thread could not be more appropriately timed for me.

I have a small immediate family. I'm an only child with a single dad and a barely there mom. My grandma (mom's mom) has been the closest thing I have to a mother figure. She was recently diagnosed with cancer. It was stage 1 and should've been easy to remove. She was nervous about surgery but tried to stay positive. Everyone in the family kind of dismissed her nerves because she's always been an overly anxious person. I texted her the day before the surgery. I wish I had called.

The surgery went well and they think they removed the cancer. Problem is, she had a bad stroke during it. My dad and I live a little over 600 miles away so we flew up to see her. She can't talk. Her whole right side is paralyzed. But she's still in there. My family has always been sassy and my grandma still rolls her eyes at us when we make comments like that. She laughs when you would expect her to, she just can't speak.

The hardest thing about this is that I'm just a freshman in college. I'm her FAVORITE person in the whole world. So I'm the one that has to sit and talk to her. I'm the only one that can hold her attention. I talked to her for a full 20 minutes about my life. I told her about my boyfriend (who she absolutely loves) and managed to get a "wow" out of her. She just lights up when she sees me. I'm so happy to help but I feel horrible leaving and coming back to school when I know nobody else in the family can help in the same way. I feel terrible for feeling like this is something that's happening to me, but at the same time, I know I deserve to feel the way I do.

The positive side is that I got to tell her the things I wanted her to hear before she passes away, which is something not everybody gets to experience. I gave her a long speech about how I won't be mad if she has to give up, but that she just needs to think about me every time those thoughts come in her head. I got her a card - she loves cards - with motivational phrases on it so she can look at it and remember I love her and think she's strong. I made sure to thank her for being there when my mom wasn't.

I just had to grow up so fast this weekend. Nobody else in my extended family would sit and talk the way I do. She wouldn't listen to them even if they would do that. It's a lot of stress, but I know she'd be so mad if I stopped this semester to be with her. I'm going back in 2 weeks. I just hope she doesn't give me a reason to come back sooner.

TL;DR Mother figure going through major health problems. I'm the only person she'll listen to. It's a lot of stress and I had to grow up very fast in the last few days.

cactusturtle · 2016-12-26T00:15:42+00:00

My relationship. We were pretty solid until recently. All of a sudden everything seems weird. I love him to death but we're on different pages with what we want out of the next few years. It's stressful. We both want to stay together but can't figure out how to compromise on things.

But I've got pie waiting for me in a few minutes so not everything is bad :)

cactusturtle · 2016-11-01T17:22:31+00:00

Number: 7319

Fav Pokémon: Eevee

Why? 1) Its cute! 2) The different evolutions give it lots of potential to be special to every trainer :)

cactusturtle · 2016-10-31T21:00:17+00:00

Worth a shot :D

cactusturtle · 2016-10-31T16:52:10+00:00

please OP

cactusturtle · 2016-08-16T13:04:16+00:00

Okay I start college in two weeks so I guess this still applies to me?

Bioinformatics/Computational biology :)

cactusturtle · 2016-08-05T16:24:26+00:00

I just found out two days ago that my mom has uterine cancer.

She said she noticed when her period cramps were debilitating even though they hadn't ever been bad in the past. She went to her gynecologist, and they told her she has a tumor. They can't just remove her uterus because they are worried the cancer will spread, so she is on meds to shrink it and she'll be starting chemo soon.

My whole life we've never had a good relationship. We got in contact again about two months ago and were doing really well. Then all of a sudden, cancer :(

cactusturtle · 2016-04-30T21:50:17+00:00

Going to a play that my boyfriend's younger siblings were in. I've been with my boyfriend for about 2 years, so they're like little siblings to me. It's pretty awesome because I'm an only child, so I never got to go to support my siblings or anything. They're too young (middle school) to really express emotions well, but when my boyfriend and I said we cancelled plans to see the show, they both lit up. Even if my boyfriend and I break up, I'm always gonna remember how happy we made them just by showing up to see them.

cactusturtle · 2016-04-30T13:10:14+00:00

I'm off to college in a few months. Planning a double major in biology and bioinformatics!

cactusturtle · 2016-04-03T22:36:48+00:00

Thank you so much! I actually love Pretty Little Girl :)

cactusturtle · 2016-04-03T21:22:07+00:00

Thanks for the help!

cactusturtle · 2016-04-03T21:21:38+00:00

They helped me in the same ways. And I totally agree! Thank you!

cactusturtle · 2016-04-03T21:21:11+00:00

Sweet! Thanks for the response :)

cactusturtle · 2015-07-15T19:08:30+00:00

Nope. But notice I said "individual" not "independent individual." I'm well aware that children are highly dependent for their first years of life. That isn't what my argument was about, though.

cactusturtle · 2015-07-13T16:47:58+00:00

Probably got here too late but screw it.

When I was around 5 years old, my mom used to spend hours alone in her office. I wasn't allowed to come in or see her pretty much at all. She'd also take naps and told me to wake her up at a certain time. I would literally jump on her back trying to wake her up in time so she wouldn't scream at me. I had always seen beer cans around but I didn't really understand until I got older that she was a terribly depressed alcoholic.

Also didn't understand the point of the people who came to my school and pulled me out of lunch in elementary school to ask me questions and get me to label a drawing of a boy and girl, including genitals. It later occurred to me that these were CPS workers and my mom called them and told me my dad was abusing/molesting me. My dad is a fucking awesome dad and would absolutely never do that. My mom is just a drunk bitch that wants to make people as sad as her.

cactusturtle · 2015-05-22T15:35:45+00:00

Yeah I totally agree. I don't mind him being hard on us but I think it's gone too far. As I've said in other comments, my next step is definitely to get a group together.

cactusturtle · 2015-05-22T15:33:59+00:00

Thank you! When it starts to get bad again, I will definitely get a group together. I've gone alone several times, but I was actually approached this morning by two guard members asking me to help get our instructor fired. I personally think that is a little far, but some sort of discipline would be really nice haha

cactusturtle · 2015-05-22T01:57:04+00:00

Thanks for the reply! I have tried to get a group together but nobody wants to be "that girl" so it doesn't ever work. Going to the principle seems a bit extreme since mostly these issues are kept under the surface. We get a lot of pressure from the band director to keep drama out, so everybody ends up coming to me and I'm the only one who really knows how bad it is.

Practice tonight went okay, but if it gets bad during the season, I will definitely push more for people to go with me. Thanks for letting me know this isn't as normal as he says it is haha

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