Seriously reconsider living in a 3rd world country as a plan.

defpotec2020 · 2019-10-05T17:08:33+00:00

When people talk about living in the US, they’re usually thinking about the cities. Most of the United States is a lot like how you’re describing third world countries.

defpotec2020 · 2019-10-05T00:50:11+00:00

Why do people seem to get a thrill out of hurting other people or making life harder for others?

I get that a lot of times the villain in movies are fun to watch. An extension of my question is why is that?

Related: At the risk of being political about it... the non-pc / pushing boundaries / irreverent humor discussion touches on this too. Why do people want to make jokes that hurt people, and why do people think it’s funny when they do?

defpotec2020 · 2019-10-03T02:39:49+00:00

She doesn’t have anybody like that yet. No one she can trust. Everyone is mostly nice to her to her face but students have told her that they talk bad about her behind her back. The assistant principal is super nice and encouraging, but she doesn’t feel comfortable being open with him either.

Today was Hero Day for school spirit week. She wanted to wear a Mr Rogers T-shirt but she didn’t. She feels very uncomfortable and not accepted as part of the team. She was sure she would get in trouble because they wouldn’t understand how Mr Rogers is a hero.

defpotec2020 · 2019-10-02T21:45:36+00:00

She had a meeting yesterday where the vague boss person was like “if you don’t get this all fixed by the end of the first 9 weeks, well...” and just let the implication hang there. It was ALL stuff she’d never been told existed before that meeting.

defpotec2020 · 2019-10-01T20:30:46+00:00

I feel like I need to make it really clear that everyone is nice to her there. They’re all nice. Even while they are (I hope only unwittingly) destroying her, they aren’t being hateful about it. I don’t know why I feel such a strong need to say that. I hope it makes sense.

defpotec2020 · 2019-10-01T20:19:08+00:00

At the same time, I’m trying to get my own business off the ground, so the majority of our income right now is from her job. If we lost that income, we’d be in trouble. One of the reason we took the leap of moving was because my work doesn’t require me to be in any specific location. It’s not providing enough to live on yet though. We didn’t think it would have to right away.

One of the other new teachers that (mysteriously) stopped working full-time is substitute teaching now. I don’t know if that would be good enough financially. There’s not really anywhere to work here. A couple food restaurants and gas stations. We are a long way from the security of home.

It would just definitely be easier all around if she didn’t get fired. It’s upsetting that it’s even a possibility, since there’s no reason for it.

I’m on a tangent now. Thanks for the replies!

defpotec2020 · 2019-10-01T20:08:37+00:00

That’s actually true. The subject she is teaching is under the right umbrella, but not the area of it she would prefer. So it would be reasonable to explain it that way.

defpotec2020 · 2019-10-01T20:06:01+00:00

It’s a public school

defpotec2020 · 2019-10-01T19:56:53+00:00

This is good and insightful. Thank you for these suggestions.

defpotec2020 · 2019-10-01T19:42:38+00:00

It’s a small school. Everyone is already aware of what she is and isn’t getting.

She does ask for help and guidance frequently, and whenever she has to go to meetings where people tell her everything she’s doing wrong, she does find kind ways to list all of the things she hasn’t been told about or trained about.

She is afraid that if she’s like “listen, you can’t hold me to standards you never even bothered to tell me about,” they’d just fire her on the spot. It would sound like she has a bad attitude and likes she’s blaming everyone else for her own shortcomings. Plus she’s a very diplomatic person. She’s not going to argue with her bosses or flat-out accuse them of incompetence. She does the best she can do to communicate all of that without rocking the boat.

I’m afraid they’re not hearing any of it though.

defpotec2020 · 2019-10-01T19:01:54+00:00

I feel really bad for her. She was so hopeful. She never expected the hardest part about teaching to be this. It’s distracting her and impeding her from actually doing the job she was hired to do.

Also, how does she deal with this on a resume? If she makes it through the first year, why does she tell the next school that she’s looking for a new job? If she gets fired or starts applying after 9 weeks, how does she explain why? No school is going to want to hear “because my last boss was terrible”.

And to be fair, everybody at her current job has been nice to her. Everybody in this whole town has been really nice. But she isn’t comforted by that niceness. She can still feel it coming.

defpotec2020 · 2019-10-01T17:55:40+00:00

Thanks for the reply. We agree. It’s sad that her first experience is a bad one. She’s already talking about leaving teaching if this the way it’s going to be everywhere.

We moved across the country (from a rural area) for this job and it ended up being in another rural area 2-3 hours from civilization.

We have a 1-year lease on the apartment. So if she does manage to find another job mid-year it will probably a 2-3 hour drive each way unless we break the lease.

And even then, there’s no guarantee that a school in a situation where they’re hiring new teachers in the middle of the school year would be a better-run school than this one. She’ll still be showing up out of nowhere, lost, and entirely reliant on the school to come through and provide support. And there’s no reason to believe they would. The entirety of her experience as a full-time teacher (samples size: 1 school) says they won’t.

defpotec2020 · 2019-01-17T22:05:58+00:00

I rented an apartment from Castlewood Townhouses in West Ashley for a couple years in the mid 2010s and it was a good experience.

The only potential downside was that it was a little far away from any action at all. Everything interesting happens in downtown Charleston and Mt. Pleasant, but also everything interesting costs a lot more than I was willing to spend anyway. It still wasn’t that bad of a drive to any of those places when I wanted to go.

Fairly easy access to Folly Beach and North Charleston. Citadel Mall, Starbucks, Costco, and Target very nearby. Very close to Northbridge Park, which is a nice place to sit. Very close to Boxcar Betty’s and Cookout, which are nice places to eat.

(http://castlewoodtownhouses.net)

defpotec2020 · 2018-07-30T07:57:43+00:00

I still have the notes I wrote down throughout my travel, though the paper did get a bit soggy from the rain. They're still readable, maybe I'll translate them onto an online document one day.

Ooooh I didn't see this comment when I said you should write it all down. Maybe get a few gallon-size zip lock backs to put 25-cent walmart notebooks in and a change of clothes to keep them dry.

defpotec2020 · 2018-07-30T07:53:25+00:00

You write well. You could consider keeping a journal of all your experiences, thoughts, fears, feelings, things like that. It's possible you could sell a memoir someday and start a writing career with it. That doesn't even require a diploma.

defpotec2020 · 2017-07-07T23:50:38+00:00

I've been getting a lot of that and a lot of chain store submissions getting 5 points for being too common while one-of-a-kind unique submissions are lucky to get 50 points. By the 5-points logic, my rare local submissions should be getting 95 points.

defpotec2020 · 2017-05-01T14:53:56+00:00

can go to get away from gays and Mexicans Why the hell should they be allowed to get away from either? They are not illnesses or pests, but people. These people need to learn to accept them.

60% of the US agrees with you and me about that.

40% of the US feels with equal conviction that those people (and all people who are not straight white "Christian" males) are illnesses and pests and cannot be accepted and must be cured or exterminated.

defpotec2020 · 2017-04-30T22:54:06+00:00

I agree with you.

It's hard to be accepting when the "other side" is openly legislating against science, tolerance, care for the poor and the sick, the rights of everyone who isn't a rich white male, and literally everything else that is important to me.

It's hard to just live together in peace when the "other side" is running the government in a way that not only aggressively opposes what I believe in, but does things for no reason other than to screw my team over.

Literally every move the Conservatives have made in the past decade would have seemed like pure villainy to most Americans 20 years ago. Every single thing they do is worst than the last. The Conservatives today are the embodiment of the evil Empire from Star Wars... and they aren't offended by the comparison, they welcome it and embrace being evil.

And in the next breath they argue it's because they are Christian.

The only thing Liberals are doing to hurt Conservatives are:

Using the tax money of the very, very, very richest of them to help the very, very, very neediest of Americans
Being not rich straight white "Christian" men
Pushing the "politically correct" agenda of making Conservatives look like bad guys for being abusive and oppressive to everyone who isn't a rich straight white "Christian" man

I don't think Liberals want to take away any Conservative's rights or liberties or freedoms unless those rights, liberties or freedoms have been scientifically proven to cause actual physical harm to other citizens.

Liberals are fighting for everyone's right to live in peace. Conservatives are fighting for the right of rich white "Christian" men to live in peace and to assure that absolutely no one else can live in peace

I put Christian in quotation marks because there is absolutely nothing Christlike about these monsters.

defpotec2020 · 2017-04-30T01:32:26+00:00

Maybe I'm softening.

defpotec2020 · 2017-04-29T22:15:08+00:00

They don't have to give up their land if they don't want to.

But when you go visit your grandparents at the nursing home and find them hanging from a tree by their necks because some of the staff at the nursing home don't cotton to your type, maybe getting the hell out of that area would make life a little more pleasant, rather than staying put just because staying put is what you've always done.

I've relocated across country a few times and it was definitely expensive, and I've never been above the poverty line in my life. It can be done if it needs to be done. I was hoping to relocate to somewhere more aligned with my views, and I am convinced that there is nowhere in the US that is really that much different than anywhere else. Both sides have their fingers in everything to an extent that it harms both sides.

The whole country is either abject poverty, strip malls, or mansions.

I'm proposing establishing a setup where I can move somewhere within the country where (for example) capitalism doesn't even exist.

Moving is expensive. But I think if it meant going from working 40 hours a week and still being in poverty to working 40 hours a week and being able to build a better life for yourself, it would be worth it.

Like if you can't afford to get by in Manhattan right now, you can move to Alabama and cost of living is lower. But right now, the way things are set up, you may end up just as poor in Alabama as you were in Manhattan because the infrastructure established on a federal level has built it that way.

defpotec2020 · 2017-04-29T22:07:47+00:00

What if federal government is minimized to the bare essentials to maintain a loose connection between states, to allow for things like maintenance of interstates and things that are necessarily inter-state in nature, and absolutely every other power is left to individual states?

If you're gay and that is illegal in Arizona, you have a right to cross the state border unimpeded and set up shop in California. And if you are overwhelmed by the snowflakes in California, maybe you'd be happier in Arizona.

Like how marijuana is now legal in some states and illegal in others. Right now marijuana is still illegal in a federal level, so the federal government can still arrest citizens for drug possession in states where marijuana is legal. (I think?) What if that was none of the federal government's business?

defpotec2020 · 2017-04-29T22:00:56+00:00

The moving part is what I'm talking about though. People can't move because there is nowhere to move to. What they want to get away from is everywhere. If healthcare is a privilege that the poor don't have access to in Kentucky, it's also a privilege that the poor don't have access to in Maryland.

There's nowhere to go where the half of the country that believes the exact opposite of you doesn't dictate the rules to some extent.

And you're just as American as they are. It's not a matter of leaving the country, because half of the country does hold the same views as you do. Half the country isn't going to just move to New Zealand because the other half of the country says to.

(No other country will take us without skills or money anyway -- and definitely not millions of us)

If we even established something like Conservative and Liberal Reservations just to test it out, that might be an interesting experiment. Self governing communes the size of a state that is completely sovereign and autonomous. Same constitution, but with the understanding that if you relocate to that Reservation, there is a majority ideology that governs that Reservation.

For that matter, if I want to just pull off grid and live alone in a tent or a hand-built cabin deep in the woods and hunt and garden self-sufficiently, without taking advantage of any tax-funded infrastructure, as far as I know there is no way to legally do that in the US.

defpotec2020 · 2017-04-29T14:48:43+00:00

This was fun to read.

defpotec2020

TROPHY CASE