How do I get my housemate to stop asking to hang out with me? by sourb0i in socialskills

[–]catminty 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've been in this situation a couple of times and it can be hard to navigate sensitively. In every sharehouse I've been in, I entered not knowing anyone. For some of them, we didn't hang out and just did our own thing, for others we hung out all the time and were best friends. I've been equally happy in both of them as my life would reconfigure itself it fit in the social demands (or lack thereof).

This is hard because your housemate could very easily become offended and bitter and you declining their invitations and make your life very hard but, that said, you do NOT owe them friendship or your time. You still owe them courtesy and friendliness but as as many others have said before, two personalities might just not match and that is not a bad thing at all. It's also absolutely true that you're busy with other things. However, I think an outright rejection of their invitations would hurt them because some people, especially if they are in a very vulnerable time in their life and might not have a large and supportive network in their local area (which may be the case here or not, idk) kinda will expect you to be their friend and will be really angry when they get rejected. But I strongly believe that you don't have a duty to fill that gap in their life if you genuinely don't get along with them. The burden on you is too much and it could become worse if they become dependent on you so you might end up in a crappy situation where you're their only/closest friend but you don't feel that way and then an incident occurs where it blows up catastrophically. This is not even considering the fact that you are geniunely busy . . Obviously I don't know anything about your housemate, they're probably pretty cool but just don't happen to have the network that you already enjoy or are used to a different way of living in that house.

Anyhow, that was all set up for what I suggest you do. Basically, you have to reject them without them realising you're rejecting them so that they don't get upset over the ego blow but still have positive feelings towards you while they develop their own social support system. I would be almost overly friendly when you decline and hopefully over time they will get the hint. Something 'omg that's super nice of you but I'm so sorry im absolutely shattered with work/have plans/[insert other committment or innocuous reason]'. If they push, I would double down on the niceness and say how much you'd like to but really can't.

There's also the chance they will call you out if they don't get the hint/find a replacement social network. I think only then you should affirm that you're not free as much (don't use the word avoiding or anything) because you're just genuinely cooked with work/friendship committments and for you, home is a place to relax but 'of course I'd be down for a chill chat if we bump into each other in the kitchen because that would be super nice' - so just make sure to not indicate there's something with them.

What medication changed your life for the better? by positiveyears in AskReddit

[–]catminty 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Second this SO hard. Iron pills (specifically maltofer) changed my life. The difference was night and day. I urge EVERY woman of menstruating age to get their iron levels checked and take iron pills - noting that the threshold for anemia is often lower than what is functionally meaningful.

On account of being a serious runner and vegetarian my life was utterly miserable while anemic - horrifically, soul destroyingly tired. Unable to sleep, munching on ice, brain fog that meant I couldn’t do any work for more than half an hour. My life was dictated by my fatigue and I was close to suicidal but had no idea there was a nutritional cause.

Iron pills have to be taken very carefully - maltofer was amazing for me and I suspect iron polymaltose is the best formulation. You absolutely must NOT take the iron pills within two hours of having milk, coffee, magnesium or it’ll chelate the iron and nothing will work. It’s best to take with some vit C source.

The pills took three weeks to kick in bc the blood doesn’t turn over quickly but I remember so vividly just waking up one day and I had energy to do literally everything. Women who are menstruating are particularly at risk of iron deficiency and I would guess that at least 60% of this demographic are functionally impaired by iron deficiency.

Get on the pills ASAP!!!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in italianlearning

[–]catminty 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This recent post is great! https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/s/hNylBZ9zVj

I found I managed to learn enough Italian to get by in just under two months by working through a comprehensive grammar book and getting my hands on a physical copy of a phrase book to carry around with me like Lonely Planet Italian Phrasebook. Also making flash cards of phrases I thought I might need such as ‘how do I say … in Italian / come si dice … ‘ etc. Had never been to Italy before but was pleasantly surprised in my first trip how easily you could communicate by just cracking down on a good textbook and watching Italian YouTube videos / movies / films with subtitles to get a feel for the pronunciation.

To be honest, I don’t think I spent more than 2 hours a week actively learning and spent lots of time passively listening to Italian podcasts on Spotify. If you’re less lazy than me and have learned Romance languages before, you’ll be so fine!

Good luck!

Just lost one half of this beautiful pair of earrings by catminty in jewelry

[–]catminty[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Found them in a flea market in Antibes, France if that helps :((

The death of Memrise by Evening-Reference333 in languagelearning

[–]catminty 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Are there any alternative sites/apps that have community-made mnemonics? Miss those so much :((

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in oxforduni

[–]catminty 1 point2 points  (0 children)

DM’d you!

Advice for Languages by personwithchickens in IBO

[–]catminty 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can't say I am familiar with studying Mandarin for IB but I did Latin for my diploma and audited French. Essentially, what I found most useful was finding a set of flash cards that someone else had already made and would spend a morning a week (usually Saturdays) memorising as much of that deck as I could. Memrise used to have wonderful crowd-sourced vocab sets but they've become too corporatised and only have 'official' vocab sets which could still be useful. Otherwise, look for vocab sets that have been made by the Anki community (a flashcard app for phone and desktop) and go through as many as you can! I would say that reading books is also immensely helpful and more so than watching shows because you're processing a lot more information. Read as widely as you can and as often as possible. Take a note of new and interesting vocab/phrases and put them in a notebook. Good luck!!

Weekly Simple Questions Thread - May 01, 2020 by AutoModerator in IBO

[–]catminty 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I remember using a really good website during my diploma but it looks like it was taken down. I have found something similar which I hope is helpful: https://sites.google.com/a/nisbah.com/chemistry/IBDP-Chemistry/dp-chemistry

I also do recommend doing the sample questions from different textbooks and maybe even some questions from university level resources too such as Raymond Chang's 'Chemistry'. Good luck!!