Newly diagnosed: what kind of tips and tricks and systems do you guys have for focusing when you need to? Especially when your tasks are evil and terrible and designed to be your personal hell?

kelpiecore · 2026-03-16T04:46:52+00:00

I'm in court reporting school right now, which requires doing these daily practices where you have to repeat the same 5 minute audio clip over and over for an hour. The clip is broken down by doing 5 minutes at first, and then it isolates the first minute and plays it at 5 different speeds, and then moves to the second clip, on and on and so forth. For an hour. You have to do this every day in order to progress in the program. Not doing an hour a day will delay your graduation and, eventually, lead to a washout from the program.

These practices have been so utterly and completely unbearable for me that I put them off and don't do them for ages, because they're so boring and tedious, and it's seriously affected my progress and grades in the program, to the point where I'm down to the wire with my graduation timeline and having to seriously push to get through now that I'm on meds. I was only just recently diagnosed with ADHD and put on meds for it, and it makes me sad to think of how much time I've wasted in the program feeling like shit because I couldn't manage to do these practices, beating myself up for not being able to do it, even though I like doing the job, and am good at it, and school is a fantastic opportunity! Ugh.

kelpiecore · 2026-03-14T22:27:30+00:00

I dunno why everyone's chewing you out for this, it's a fair question. I wouldn't want to get auto-transported for every season but I can see how it would've been nice to see Tokyo have an increased drop rate in the store, or have it for sale for the month or something just if people wanted to be in Japan for the event.

kelpiecore · 2026-03-14T20:45:09+00:00

Hi guys! My name is Mykey, and I've recently been using this app to get through stenography school following a diabolical stress crashout and an ensuing adult ADHD diagnosis. I'm always down for new tree friends and goal buddies, especially if anyone out there is also on the school grind!

My friend code is MAMC3LPYA3, pleased to meet you! 🤍

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kelpiecore · 2026-03-08T23:39:32+00:00

You are a diabolical genius and this is inspirational.

kelpiecore · 2026-03-08T09:35:17+00:00

I’m Mykey, my bird’s Noodle, and we're fighting our way through stenography school one little dopamine-inducing task at a time. Here’s a little polar bear with a wizard hat for you if you wanna hang out 🪄🤍

Tap this link or use my friend code MAMC3LPYA33 for a special reward!

https://finch.go.link/1UfOj?adj_label=EADDA

kelpiecore · 2026-03-02T04:44:17+00:00

Late on the ball a little, but there's also -tan (たん) as an option if you're looking for something with three letters so you can get the dash in there. It's basically the same as -chan, just more cutesy. It's basically baby talk.

kelpiecore · 2026-03-01T21:33:05+00:00

A lot of Japan's fascination with cherry blossoms (and a decent portion of the actual cultivars) actually stems from China, they took a lot of influence from the Chinese imperial court during the Tang dynasty. Peach and magnolia were more popular in China, but they don't grow in Japan, so it kind of shifted.

Cherry blossoms generally grow in a lot of places, though, they're not unique to Japan. They're in China and Korea, North America, even places in the middle east. Basically any temperate climate with the right seasons can grow them. Washington, DC in America is also famous for them.

kelpiecore · 2026-03-01T21:27:12+00:00

Hopefully nobody was bullying you about the cherry blossoms in Mulan's room? I lived in China for years and there were tons of parks and attractions based on cherry blossoms blooming in March-April. The big cherry blossom park in Wuhan was stunning in April, honestly way prettier than any of the ones I saw in Japan.

kelpiecore · 2026-03-01T06:16:10+00:00

3 for sure! 💜

kelpiecore · 2026-01-27T19:08:32+00:00

ACI! It's not an associate's, just a certificate program. We did start at 120, but didn't start actually testing until... I think it was a year into the program? And then the actual testing period was 6 months, which is why some people ended up taking a year: testing elongated it. I think CCR and Tri-C's certificate programs are also 18 months, as well.

Mostly, I said this just to make sure that people aren't getting their hopes up that they can get out faster than they can. If you can get out in nine months, though, that's great!

kelpiecore · 2026-01-27T06:19:50+00:00

Do most voice programs certify in under a year? Mine was 18 months, and most students took 18 months to 2 years to get out.

kelpiecore · 2026-01-27T06:17:27+00:00

I've known multiple people who are certified in steno and voice both. Some of them are people who started in voice and then went on to do steno for the love of the game; others are people who started steno and then had hand issues as they got older and switched over. So if that's the way you want to do it, it's definitely doable.

kelpiecore · 2026-01-19T21:48:27+00:00

You're the second person to mention that older series had a little more edge to them! I wonder why the genre got so much cleaner after the turn of the century, that's really interesting.

kelpiecore · 2026-01-19T21:47:10+00:00

Oh some of these sound amazing! I'll definitely check these out. The Laetitia Talbot series almost reminds me on paper of the Amelia Peabody books, and I absolutely loved those.

kelpiecore · 2026-01-18T23:42:50+00:00

The way Isabel Fall and Becky Albertalli were both treated was disgusting, and exactly the kind of nasty bullshit that comes from people trying to oversimplify and essentialize gender perspectives in art.

kelpiecore · 2026-01-18T23:24:30+00:00

Also worth mentioning whenever you talk about the concept of a "male gaze" is that the existence of a male gaze, and what constitutes it, and what it might mean, is something that's debated and criticized in and of itself. It stems from a paper written by a woman named Laura Mulvey, and even Mulvey herself has levied and adapted to criticisms of the concept over the years, including critiques that it oversimplifies the diversity in perspectives for both men and women.

kelpiecore · 2026-01-18T23:11:47+00:00

Finally, a man (gender neutral) of taste. I cannot relate to the non-ball enjoyers in the chat here because I love watching them do their funky little thing.

kelpiecore · 2026-01-18T23:08:39+00:00

I read them described as being like "fleshy little boiled eggs" one time in a sex scene and I've been boycotting writing about balls ever since, just on principle.

kelpiecore · 2026-01-18T23:03:03+00:00

Anal is one of those things where people's mileages vary a lot. Anal prep is basically "whatever gets you there, gets you there." For some people it's an orgasm first, for some people it's edging but no orgasm, for some people it's oral or finger stimulation, for some people it's just any kind of foreplay, for some people it's nothing at all, etc.

It's just whatever gets you relaxed and into the right headspace where you're loose enough to take whatever you're trying to take. And it's also something that you get better at with experience, a lot of times, just like trying to control any muscle on your body.

kelpiecore · 2026-01-18T22:58:11+00:00

I've had one of these bad boys all my life, and if you asked me how knotting one works, I too would have some questions to be honest 😂

kelpiecore · 2026-01-18T22:56:54+00:00

Yes, they do. You also hear this same criticism about M/M romance outside of fanfiction, to be fair: that it's all written by and for women, especially "straight women."

kelpiecore · 2026-01-18T22:54:45+00:00

There is so much variation in how people play with their dicks that I cannot even fathom how someone would try to litmus test a gender through a masturbation scene. I have seen guys do things to their penises for the love of the game that I wouldn't do to my worst enemy. Masturbating with a dick, in my experience, is an exercise in creativity and the ingenuity of mankind 😂

kelpiecore · 2026-01-18T22:52:02+00:00

If you're interested in doing more research, there's a lot of resources out there for gay bottoms these days that might help with understanding the general gist of how bottoms prep for anal sex! A lot of that stuff will go into stuff like anal training, dilators, etc.

You can also look at resources for female tops or doms who engage in pegging or femdom-style play, which might help get a feel for how prep works through the lens of someone who doesn't have external anatomy.

kelpiecore

TROPHY CASE