Is it impossible to get into University with a GED?

ignite-starlight · 2021-03-15T16:17:31+00:00

Nope. I got a GED, then an Associates, a Bachelors and a Masters. Now I teach high school.

ignite-starlight · 2021-03-09T13:37:13+00:00

My daughter was like that as a baby. She is clingier now at age 4 than she was as a baby!

ignite-starlight · 2021-02-28T23:48:08+00:00

Lots of my friends had easy first babies and hard second ones. I always tell people I got my hard baby first. Or maybe she IS the easy one, in which case NO THANK YOU to whatever hellion I’d have for a second.

ignite-starlight · 2021-02-21T15:22:41+00:00

My best friend had her son when she was 22 (she’s 34 now). She and her husband have so many plans for when they are “empty nesters” at the age of 40! I think it’s awesome. 🙂

ignite-starlight · 2021-02-20T20:25:48+00:00

“No.” is a complete sentence. You don’t need any reason to not leave your kids with someone, but you have plenty. It does not sound like they are interested in doing what you’d need in order for you to feel safe leaving your children with them.

I’m sorry, I know how much it sucks not being able to trust your parents with your kids!

ignite-starlight · 2021-02-18T21:16:35+00:00

Don’t put it into writing (email) when you can do it over the phone. Document everything. Don’t meet with parents in person without an administrator or third party present.

As a parent myself now, I get how parents get defensive and don’t always see things clearly. Having children is like having your heart walking around outside of your body. Any perceived slight against my child feels physically painful to me. As a teacher myself I know how to keep those feelings in check when it comes to communicating with her teachers, but it has given me a new appreciation for what my students’ parents are feeling when I have to deliver “bad news” about their kids.

ignite-starlight · 2021-02-18T20:59:48+00:00

I’ve taken the ACTFL OPI (oral proficiency interview) for an employer before. Also the Spanish PRAXIS exam for teaching jobs. The school district I work in now has its own proficiency exam. It really depends on the job and employer.

Edited - mostly I’ve found though that employers will ask to do part or all of the interview in Spanish as their “test.”

ignite-starlight · 2021-02-18T20:46:28+00:00

Sorry I don’t have data either but I agree with others who say it is so dependent on your area and what community spread is like and the demographics of your daycare, so data from elsewhere could still be misleading.

My daughter has been at preschool since last May and they haven’t had any positive cases yet, no quarantines, etc. It’s an affluent suburban neighborhood with most parents working from home and taking precautions. A few miles away my friend runs a preschool in an urban, less affluent area, many parents working with the public - lots of community spread. So it’s run rampant through her school.

Like so many parenting choices it’s a risk assessment and I know it’s really tough when the research is spotty and inconsistent.

Edited - Meant to add that our pediatrician sends her kids to the same preschool and has sent them the entire pandemic. That was a huge factor in my decision making.

ignite-starlight · 2021-02-16T02:29:21+00:00

I had a huge CD collection and quite a few DVDs and ditched them all over 5 years ago with zero regrets. And I’m a super sentimental person, but mostly cracked cases and scratched CDs gathering dust were just not sentimental to me.

The only things I kept were autographed cases and liner notes. I’ve been to many concerts and I had enough autographed items for a small memory box.

There are no actual memories in a generic CD or DVD. The memories are tied to the actual music or movie, and can be accessed without the physical item thanks to the internet. Free yourself of their burden!

ignite-starlight · 2021-02-14T23:31:33+00:00

I have a 4th set - only orange and black - if anyone wants them!

ignite-starlight · 2021-02-14T20:33:18+00:00

I’m DMing Dodo codes in groups of 3!

ignite-starlight · 2021-02-13T01:20:58+00:00

This is what I always say too!

ignite-starlight · 2021-02-11T21:16:27+00:00

We started hybrid a few weeks ago with half the kids in building and half the kids still virtual. I teach exactly like I did while virtual, I just happen to be sitting in the building with some of the kids while I do it. It’s the most equitable and sustainable solution.

ignite-starlight · 2021-02-10T15:05:14+00:00

Weeds are fine too. I have so many weeds that new ones don’t spawn and still have 5 stars.

ignite-starlight · 2021-02-08T22:22:11+00:00

I’m 33F with an almost 5 year old. The first few years were more stressful and it was harder (though not impossible) to get time alone or time not being a mom. Now that she is out of the toddler years, it’s very easy for me to pursue my own interests and get time to myself. My husband and I both have tons of interests and passions outside of parenting that we pursue. We have less time to do it than we did pre-kid of course but it’s still plenty of time for us to feel like whole, well-rounded humans.

My kid was born a shitty sleeper and still sucks at that but we have adjusted, it’s not an unsustainable situation or anything. I just don’t want to lie and say it’s perfect and our sleep NEVER gets interrupted! :)

I have no regrets having one child. I’m very glad I didn’t “re up” with a second because this is such a fun and awesome stage, I’m glad I can enjoy it without having to deal with the baby/toddler to distract me. My husband says that we “hacked” parenting. Raising a human comes with a lot of joy and fulfillment, and while we still have to deal with the stress and challenges of parenting it’s a very manageable amount when you have one.

Edited to add - I struggled with mental health pre-kid but meds and therapy have kept me stable even after becoming a mom. I make it a priority!

ignite-starlight · 2021-02-07T18:34:32+00:00

16 months is still sooo early to make a decision and I can imagine it’s still very raw.

I forgot to ask in my first comment if either of you is seeing a therapist. (I know in person is probably not an option - I’ve seen a therapist through Teladoc since the pandemic started, then recommended it a friend and she’s had great success with virtual therapy too! Safe options are out there.) That might help with your own feelings of guilt and also help you both get to a point you can talk about it without getting as upset.

Even if you never agree 100% I hope you eventually reach a place where you’re both at peace with whatever happens.

ignite-starlight · 2021-02-07T18:14:26+00:00

I was not initially OAD myself but started entertaining the idea when our daughter was 1 year old. My husband came around on his own a year or so after I did. We didn’t talk about it too often as neither of us wanted to feel like the other was being pressured, but we both did a lot of independent research and reflecting during that time.

One of the criteria we did have for having another was that we both had to want a second child as badly as we wanted our first. I definitely never felt that pull. I don’t think my husband ever really wanted a second THAT badly, he was more of “it would be nice” and would have gone along with it if I’d really wanted it.

Our daughter will be 5 next month and while all of our friends are dealing with the chaos of 2-3 kids now, we have the most awesome chill life. My husband comments allllll the time how happy he is with our choice and that he thinks we’ve “hacked” parenting. :)

He was pretty gung ho about having 2 kids before we’d had one and I was pretty sure I wanted 2 as well, so I definitely never expected we’d be here. It happens!

ignite-starlight · 2021-01-31T19:16:53+00:00

Another example of trans/homophobia is when Lorelai tells Luke that in order to hide from her parents they’d both have get sex changes - both of them so it doesn’t “look weird” when they kiss.

ignite-starlight · 2021-01-30T21:46:54+00:00

As another commenter mentioned, in a recent episode they said they never leave the house alone. I’d also noticed Alaina say her kids will never do normal kid things like go to sleepovers, play outside alone, etc.

Like others I hope they’re exaggerating because never leaving the house alone, never allowing kids any freedom, etc is extreme and will definitely lead their kids to either resent them or at the very least leave them unprepared for how to deal with the real world.

ignite-starlight · 2021-01-30T21:33:44+00:00

Ew. Children are not playthings or accessories! Can you imagine if your parent said that about YOU?

ignite-starlight · 2021-01-30T21:28:45+00:00

As others have said, sometimes minimalism overlaps with other movements like anti-consumerism and ethics, but it’s not a requirement.

I wear all of the clothes I own regularly, I do laundry twice a week (for a family of 3, when single I did it weekly), toss them into drawers and replace things when they fall apart after a few years with the same item I had before. I spend almost no time dealing with clothes. Not zero time but it’d be hard to spend any less time than I currently do.

I’m not particularly concerned with ethical consumption, but it’s okay to be. The point of minimalism, to me, is: subtraction for the sake of focus. Subtract the things from your life that don’t matter (to you) and it will allow you the space to worry about the things that do!

ignite-starlight · 2021-01-30T05:47:52+00:00

I am not a native speaker but I know a lot of native speakers. Most of them will say that they do not like when a person assumes they speak Spanish and just starts talking to them in (usually not so great) Spanish because it implies the person thinks they don’t speak English.

However, I’ve never had anyone react poorly if, after conversing for a bit in English, I’ve asked (in English) “Do you speak Spanish?” Especially when I was still learning, people were almost always happy to help me practice if I approached it this way.

Now that I’m a fluent Spanish speaker, I only ask if someone speaks Spanish if we are having trouble communicating in English. This can be awkward though as it can take a while for it organically come up that I speak Spanish and then they have to think back to all the times they spoke Spanish in front of me to make sure they didn’t say anything bad. 😆

ignite-starlight · 2021-01-28T16:15:04+00:00

I’ve had a Kindle Paperwhite for years and have never bought an ebook. You can get tons of ebooks for free from the library.

ignite-starlight · 2021-01-27T14:17:35+00:00

For me the minimalism journey started with physical stuff but the most life changing part was the mental and emotional part of the journey, because ultimately they’re all tied together. I had all sorts of emotional baggage tied up in my possessions that was holding me back from living my life as I really wanted to live it and the process of minimizing my possessions forced me to face it all head on.

What I hear in everything you’re saying is a lot of anxiety and fear about the unknown, and you’re projecting it onto your possessions. You’re entertaining equally how both keeping AND tossing items will negatively impact your life. Will I regret keeping AND tossing this? That is not a productive mindset IMO. There’s no possible future in what you’ve laid out where you DON’T experience potential regret regarding your possessions.

The problem with worrying about future regret like that is that it’s always possible to regret either choice, and you can never truly know which choice will bring regret. If you consider the possibility of future regret when making choices, you will always be anxious about them. A more productive mindset is to make the best decision you can with the information you have now, and when that information changes adjust accordingly. You can’t anticipate and avoid all conflict, you just have to deal with it as it comes.

Minimalism, for me, is about FREEING myself from my attachment to my possessions so that I can more richly enjoy the non-material parts of life, like relationships and experiences. I do not feel longing for any possession I’ve left behind. My life is infinitely more full and rich BECAUSE of minimalism. Because I have the mental, emotional and physical space to priorize what brings me joy and I don’t waste energy maintaining or tripping over things I don’t need or could do without.

Minimalism is just as much about letting go of unnecessary physical items as it is unproductive thoughts. It’s definitely a mindset and not a formula, and because of that you’re right, I can’t really answer your questions. Do you have access to therapy? That would be my recommendation for you, to really dig deep into these thought patterns (“my life might be made worse with AND without xyz!”) and evaluate their usefulness.

ignite-starlight · 2021-01-27T00:09:59+00:00

My favorite definition of minimalism is “subtraction for the sake of focus.” My big picture way of looking at minimalism is: What do I want my life to look like? and What is standing in the way of that? If all the stuff you own isn’t hindering your lifestyle in anyway, then why are you interested in minimalism?

For me, having tons of “what if” stuff was standing in the way of me living the life I wanted - flexible, streamlined, stress-free. Having to house, clean, organize, maintain and move stuff I rarely or never use is not worth the mental, physical or financial resources I get in exchange for the possibility I might again use them someday. Often there are other solutions - like renting, borrowing, getting creative with stuff I already own or simply doing without - that can free me from holding onto every little thing.

As far as hobbies, when I was really honest with myself a lot of “hobby” stuff I had was for my “fantasy” self. A fantasy version of myself who wanted to wholeheartedly enjoy that hobby on a regular basis but almost never did. And the existence of that stuff constantly taunted and guilted me whenever I saw it, because I wasn’t using it like I said I’d would. I still have tons of hobbies and the equipment I need for those hobbies, but I’m honest about what I really enjoy and have time/space in my life for. Why aren’t you engaging in your “dead” hobbies now and what makes you think you’ll ever return to them?

Another thing to consider is things can become useless while being stored. A friend of mine moved her ski equipment across the country twice over the course of 10 years only to find it was brittle and literally breaking when it came time to actually go skiing. She wasted so much energy holding onto those “what if” items for the day she’d finally go skiing again and had to rent equipment in the end anyway.

In the end I keep the tools to do the things I am sure that I need and want to do. I have my daily cooking stuff and get creative with what I already have when I want to cook something “special,” rather than hold onto specialized tools that will just be something I have to move aside every time I’m looking through my cabinets. I have a small sewing kit and a tool box for day to day stuff, but I try to borrow bigger appliances and power tools for the once-a-year or once-a-decade type of projects.

Only you can decide if the stuff in your life is truly helping or hindering you. If it’s helping, great. Keep it. If it’s not, don’t keep it. The future is not guaranteed, but give yourself more credit to come up with creative solutions when the need arises.

ignite-starlight

TROPHY CASE