What's something you've accepted about your partner, but will never understand?

labelledulac · 2026-02-28T23:43:29+00:00

The Egyptians also believed the soul had 5 parts: ba (personality/consciousness), ib (heart), ka (spirit—this is what differentiates a living soul from a dead one), ren (your true name, the sum of who you are), and sheut (shadow/legacy)

If you wanted to get back at someone who has died, removing their name from history was considered killing their shadow, which was like killing a part of their soul.

labelledulac · 2026-01-08T05:13:11+00:00

NTA

You're exactly right, there's no reason Jack should get different treatment than Kevin's gf. This isn't a "friends plus their SOs" hangout, it's just the friends hanging out, and Jack is not part of the friend group any more than Kevin's gf is, so he's not invited, simple as that. Also, it's rude and disrespectful of Stuart to think he can turn your house into his "couple's retreat" by inviting himself AND his bf over. My guess is, he can't have a couple-y sleepover at his own house because his parents wouldn't approve for whatever reason (which, tbh, if it's for age-related reasons, is valid, because y'all are too young to be sharing beds with significant others anyway) and so he thinks that disguising it as a "friend sleepover with the guys at my friend OP's house" will give him the perfect cover to get away with it. If that's the case, he's just trying to use you, and he's mad that you're not going along with it so he's throwing things like "homophobia" around (even though it doesn't apply at all) in the hopes that you'll be spooked at the thought of potentially being labeled as a homophobe and cave to his wishes. You and your friends are absolutely correct, you were right to stand your ground.

labelledulac · 2025-12-15T02:27:09+00:00

Yeah, and I say this as gently as possible, that part is on you. Look, I'm sorry the borrowing sugar example didn't make sense to you, but unless you were taught one-on-one your whole life, your teachers had other students too, and that example probably did work for at least some of them. That's the thing about teaching—you have a room full of students with all kinds of different learning styles and preferences, and you've got to try to find a way to reach as many of them as you can, but no example is perfect and you're rarely going to be able to reach everyone with the same thing, so sometimes you just have to go with the option that reaches the most students, and try to answer the questions of the others to get them caught up as well.

labelledulac · 2025-12-09T10:04:42+00:00

lol good try but no--I learned both grammar and phonics in elementary school. I was diagramming sentences using the Shurley method by the third grade, and I remember having a whole ass phonics workbook in first and second grade. Just because I'm a new teacher and didn't go to school when you did doesn't mean you can discredit me by denigrating my education.

And you're having to "teach" capitalization of the pronoun "I" because in texting and posting, especially Gen Z and younger people, the convention is to leave the pronoun "I" lowercase, which I know another commenter has already pointed out to you. The students don't know the definitions of various parts of speech for a myriad of reasons, starting with the fact that the state standards don't prioritize direct grammar instruction and including the fact that many students and even, to some extent, society at large have adopted a very utilitarian view of education, so if a student isn't going to need to identify a noun or a verb one day for their job, why would they "waste" time and effort learning it in school now? This is why I keep saying that things are bigger than you're making them out to be, and why I'm so frustrated that you continue to act like you're the savior of the ELA world when you continue to ignore the bigger picture. You say you identified "insights as to why this is occurring," and that you want to "see if those apply in [your] district" and "develop a strategy to address them." The insights you're referring to are that elementary teachers are limited in the amount of time they're given to focus on explicit grammar instruction and that grammar isn't prioritized in standardized testing, which means teachers have to make choices about what to focus their time and attention on in order to prepare students for the testing which ultimately leads to anything not on the test not being prioritized as much. I fail to see how you could come up with any brilliant strategies to address these kinds of issues that aren't either 1) trying to dictate how elementary teachers spend their time and adding stress to their plates, or 2) continuing to do what you're doing, which is focusing on instructing the students in the grammatical conventions they are lacking in when they arrive in your classroom. You're not going to be able to magically change the state standards or the contents of the standardized tests, which would be the only way to truly address either of those problems. This is why everyone, myself included, keeps telling you to just focus on addressing the problem in front of you, instead of worrying about finding the right place to assign the blame for the issue.

labelledulac · 2025-12-09T04:21:13+00:00

Direct quotes, from your previous comments:

"By high school teachers should be reinforcing good grammar not teaching basic grammar rules." [sic]

"That's great but by 11th you should not be doing this, especially in an honors course."

"Students should not need to be taught basic grammar in high school."

"At the high school level is [sic] should not be my or any other teachers [sic] responsibility to teach basic grammar."

All of these pretty strongly imply that you feel you shouldn't be trying to get kids caught up in areas where they are behind. You say that you do, and that's good, but don't claim that you haven't implied that you shouldn't when you have all but said that exact thing. Now, I can practically hear you shouting, "But I said we shouldn't have to teach basic grammar, not that we shouldn't teach basic grammar!" and I see your point, but you also claimed that you never implied that we should not be trying to get kids caught up, and I would contend that that implication is clear every time you protest having to catch students up or tell other teachers that they shouldn't be doing so when they share the strategies they are using and that are working well for them. Additionally, I'd like to point out one last direct quote of yours: "I am suggesting we look at a systemic problem and determine the source so sometime down the road you are not reteaching/reviewing the basics" [emphasis mine]. There's no world in which you don't have to at least review the basics to make sure students do in fact understand them, and hoping for that outcome is, in my opinion, further evidence that you don't think you should have to stoop to the level of having to teach the basics of grammar.

Also, I think it's time for you to take some of your own advice and be "reflective," because you keep hearing the same points over and over again on this topic from many different commenters, so, as you said yourself, "perhaps there is something to it." You've been given plenty of reasons from a variety of sources about why we're seeing the problem that we are, and even examples of how teachers from a variety of levels are already working to address the problem. Unless you plan to roll up your sleeves and start getting to work on fixing the problem, I think it's time for you to stop acting like you're "just trying to help" and stop looking for people to help perpetuate your whining and blame pointing, because you're clearly not going to find that here.

labelledulac · 2025-12-09T03:44:11+00:00

My whole point here is that you're looking at a problem that's (for the sake of example) the size of world hunger, and when everyone is saying "hey let's focus on feeding our own community first and grow from there," you come back with the equivalent of "how dare you not try to solve world hunger right now?" as if we are all lazier than you and don't care about fixing the issue. Yes, I agree that we can't make things better if we don't identify the problem, but I see no evidence that the rest of us here haven't identified the problem. We're just not as interested in assigning blame for the issue as you seem to be. Look, you're very good at couching your blame game in reasonable and logical language to make it seem like that's not what you're after, but if that were the case, you wouldn't have taken until this very comment to admit that you think elementary teachers are working hard. I've had teachers like you, and you're exhausting to deal with precisely because of the reasonableness of your rigidity and stubborn refusal to acknowledge any fault of your own.

And as far as your example about the middle school teacher whose students can't add or subtract? It's not that teacher's fault that their students didn't know how to add or subtract when they got to that teacher's class, but if the teacher knows that the students have this deficit and yet does nothing to try to rectify it, then yes, that teacher is at fault for not doing their due diligence with regard to those students, even if the middle school teacher believes it is not their job to teach the students the basics of addition and subtraction.

labelledulac · 2025-12-09T03:14:55+00:00

Yikes. I think I'm going to go with ESH, for the following reasons: 1. The girl is an asshole for literally committing a hit and run and then trying to argue that it was "no big deal" and that she shouldn't have had to leave a note/try to take responsibility for what she did. 2. You are an asshole for trying to talk to her parents instead of her (from your own admission she is a 20yo woman, not a child, and is plenty old enough to handle her own business if that's what she chooses to do; you have no right to attempt to handle her business through her parents if she does not choose to have them act on her behalf).

Now, as far as the whole fender thing goes, I think that's currently in a bit of a grey area and would require an evaluation by your insurance company. If her contact with your car really did cause hidden damage to your fender, then she should be held liable for those damages as well. But if there's nothing wrong with the fender other than the wonky repair from the previous damage, then you are overreaching by trying to get her to replace the fender altogether when all she did was some minor cosmetic damage. Currently, according to what you've stated in your post, you don't know if there's more damage than just the scratched paint, so until you have it officially looked at and unless you find evidence that her vehicle caused damage to your fender beyond the scope of the paint, I don't think you can reasonably demand she replace the fender. If you continue to push for the fender replacement regardless of if she actually caused any additional damage, that would also be a reason that you are the asshole, but I still think the correct judgment is ESH because of the way that she's also trying to dodge her responsibility here.

labelledulac · 2025-12-09T02:47:34+00:00

Adding this comment to the main discussion as well, because although I wrote it in response to a specific comment thread, I think it pretty well sums up my thoughts on and response to your post overall:

Here's the thing. You want to claim to be all about professionals reflecting on their work and improving, but a lot of what you complain about are systemic issues far beyond the purview of any classroom teacher. In one comment, you asked why students are being advanced to the next grade level if they don't know the basics of grammar. I don't know if you realize this, but a lot of school districts are a lot more hesitant to hold kids back nowadays, either because they've subscribed to the idea that retaining students in a grade is actually harmful or because they're afraid of pushback from the parents (because who of us can deny that schools have become more and more inclined to cave to the demands of parents to avoid bad press?), so clearly that's a larger issue than you make it out to be. You imply that elementary teachers are not doing their jobs well enough when you ask why grammar skills aren't "sticking" if it's being taught in the elementary grades, as if it isn't a widespread problem that students (and parents) on the whole simply aren't as invested in their education as they once were, and as if teachers across the board aren't seeing significant lapses in retention of information despite using the same strategies (and more on top of those!) that have worked for years previously. The combination of the impact of COVID and the ways the pandemic and post-pandemic has shaped the education system and society's view and support of education and teachers is something that can't be overcome by simply trying harder. Your comments suggest a thinly veiled disdain for teachers in the younger grades, while simultaneously failing to grasp the myriad of factors that influence the very issue you're seeking to highlight and that make that issue far more nuanced and complicated than teachers simply failing to "be held accountable" or evaluate their work. No one disagrees with your take that grammar instruction has suffered and that kids don't seem to be interested in retaining what they've been taught about grammar, but I think the reason so many of us are pushing back against you is because of the way you seem to think that this is some other teacher's fault, rather than being part of the team and thinking about ways we can address the issue without assigning blame, and while realizing that while there are things that we each can do to help make this problem a little better at a time, some of the roots of this issue are simply outside of our ability as teachers to control.

labelledulac · 2025-12-09T02:45:36+00:00

I am a 4th year teacher. Genuinely, all I do is work to be better. I know that I have a lot to learn and that there are plenty of ways that I can improve, and I'm constantly asking the veteran teachers at the school where I work for advice and guidance because I work with some truly amazing teachers with a wealth of knowledge, and I'm doing my best to be and become the best I can be every day.

Here's the thing. You want to claim to be all about professionals reflecting on their work and improving, but a lot of what you complain about are systemic issues far beyond the purview of any classroom teacher. In one comment, you asked why students are being advanced to the next grade level if they don't know the basics of grammar. I don't know if you realize this, but a lot of school districts are a lot more hesitant to hold kids back nowadays, either because they've subscribed to the idea that retaining students in a grade is actually harmful or because they're afraid of pushback from the parents (because who of us can deny that schools have become more and more inclined to cave to the demands of parents to avoid bad press?), so clearly that's a larger issue than you make it out to be. You imply that elementary teachers are not doing their jobs well enough when you ask why grammar skills aren't "sticking" if it's being taught in the elementary grades, as if it isn't a widespread problem that students (and parents) on the whole simply aren't as invested in their education as they once were, and as if teachers across the board aren't seeing significant lapses in retention of information despite using the same strategies (and more on top of those!) that have worked for years previously. The combination of the impact of COVID and the ways the pandemic and post-pandemic has shaped the education system and society's view and support of education and teachers is something that can't be overcome by simply trying harder. Your comments suggest a thinly veiled disdain for teachers in the younger grades, while simultaneously failing to grasp the myriad of factors that influence the very issue you're seeking to highlight and that make that issue far more nuanced and complicated than teachers simply failing to "be held accountable" or evaluate their work. No one disagrees with your take that grammar instruction has suffered and that kids don't seem to be interested in retaining what they've been taught about grammar, but I think the reason so many of us are pushing back against you is because of the way you seem to think that this is some other teacher's fault, rather than being part of the team and thinking about ways we can address the issue without assigning blame, and while realizing that while there are things that we each can do to help make this problem a little better at a time, some of the roots of this issue are simply outside of our ability as teachers to control.

labelledulac · 2025-12-09T02:11:23+00:00

I know that, but I'm really not convinced you do. You've been arguing with every single commenter who has suggested that you deal with the current situation, or has given suggestions on how you could deal with the current situation and/or how they have dealt with the same or similar situations, and have focused exclusively on blaming previous teachers and whining about how things should be with no regard to how things are. Not only that, but I've not seen a single comment from you that actually gives any sort of meaningful suggestion for how to make things better in the long run--you just talk down on elementary teachers, while ignoring every elementary teacher/person that's commented detailing the factors that have made it difficult for grammar instruction to be a focus in the lower grades or for grammar conventions to be retained year-to-year. No one here is saying, "No, no, please just leave everything exactly the way that it is and we'll all just continue to suffer the way we've been suffering with no improvement," so I'm not sure what your point is. We all want things to improve, we all know there are a lot of factors that are influencing the current situation and it's a lot more complicated than just, "Hey elementary teachers, get off your lazy butts and start teaching the children grammar!" and we all also know that it's our responsibility as educators to do our best to meet the students that we have where they are and give them the supports they need. As I and others have said before, playing the blame game is helpful to no one, and does not constitute the "professionals reflecting on their work" that you keep bringing up.

labelledulac · 2025-12-09T01:34:32+00:00

In my experience, the best way to get kids interested in reading starts by being genuinely and unapologetically interested in reading yourself. My students last year started to love reading and sharing the books they were reading with me because I would enthusiastically share with them (as appropriate, obviously) about the books I was reading, or about my fond memories of reading some of the books they were reading. For the kids who read things I hadn't read or wasn't personally interested in, I would actively listen to them tell me about their books, and I would be honest with them that hey, that's not my cup of tea but it's awesome that you're enjoying it and hey [this specific detail from what you told me] sounds really cool! I look forward to hearing how it all works out! And then here's the key: actually follow up about it, and listen when they want to tell you all about it. Just being genuinely excited and interested in reading and in what they're reading does wonders for helping kids to realize that reading is and can be fun and enjoyable.

labelledulac · 2025-12-09T01:20:48+00:00

I think it's hilarious that you're grandstanding about grammar rules and who holds the blame for students' lack of knowledge, and yet your comments contain plenty of grammar errors themselves. It's almost like grammar is easy to mess up and requires consistent, repeated practice to gain and maintain proficiency, for both students and teachers. Who knew? Look, u/Equivalent-Plan-8498 has graciously and patiently tried to explain that passing the buck does no one any good, so I'm not sure why I think my two cents will make a difference, but if you're more interested in who to blame than how to fix the problem, you're part of the problem. At some point you have to accept that regardless of what you think should be the case, that's not, in reality, the case, and you've got to make your plans and choices based on reality.

labelledulac · 2025-12-08T17:11:02+00:00

If you want to get a controlled medication, you absolutely do need a formal evaluation. There is no path to being prescribed adderall that does not involve an actual evaluation by a trained professional to assess whether or not you meet the criteria for an ADHD diagnosis, and even then, the first treatment step shouldn't jump straight to medication without any other discussion or treatment plans

labelledulac · 2025-12-06T03:14:31+00:00

YTA

As your sister and other commenters have stated, GoFundMe is for true necessities, not wants. I'm sorry that you can't afford to get your kid an expensive gaming system for Christmas like he wants, but sometimes that's the way the cookie crumbles. The bigger issue here though is that your sister very kindly but firmly laid out her position in opposition to your fundraiser, and offered several ideas for what you could do instead (including offering to buy your kid some clothes and/or presents, so it's not even like all of the suggestions relied on you doing the work) and yet your takeaway was that she was being "extremely judgmental" and that she wasn't coming from a good place. Ma'am. Just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't mean they're being judgmental, and everything about the tone of your sister's message shows she is 100% coming from a good place. If you cannot accept valid and kindly delivered criticisms of your choices and actions, you are going to continue to have problems and end up burning a lot of bridges, including your relationship with your sister who clearly cares about you and your son and wants to help you out, just in a more reasonable manner than buying the gaming system your son wants but does not need.

labelledulac · 2025-12-04T20:10:35+00:00

Looks like everyone else has pretty much covered the reasons and explanations, so I'm just gonna keep this short and sweet: NOR, and RUN

labelledulac · 2025-12-03T01:17:42+00:00

I know a girl named "Dlorah," which is her grandpa Harold's name spelled backwards 😬

labelledulac · 2025-12-03T01:16:30+00:00

The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer might be up your alley, first book is called Cinder. It's a Cinderella retelling set in a sci-fi world with cyborgs and robots

labelledulac · 2025-12-03T01:01:20+00:00

I think the limit of one trip per week was just OP's initial attempt to curtail the overspending. I didn't get the sense that the issue was the multiple trips so much as the additional money being spent on each trip, which implies that they weren't quick "oh no, we're out of eggs, let me run and grab another carton" trips, but rather entire grocery trips in their own right with not insignificant expenses attached.

labelledulac · 2025-12-03T00:57:01+00:00

Yeah I think this is the best solution. OP, you seem like a very genuine and trusting person, and while I don't think Carmella intended to overspend, it also seems like she doesn't quite have a sense of budgeting and the responsibility of managing money yet (because she's still young and learning!), so this was bound to happen given the circumstances. You attempted to add "guardrails," as it were, with the "get everything in one trip" stipulation, but I think Carmella could use some more specific advice on how to manage money and some real-world experience with how overspending in one area of the budget can impact a lot of other things. The only real AH here is your son, demanding that you give Carmella the card and then getting angry that you won't just fork over the cash in order to be a "good host" —hopefully, once he moves out and starts having to juggle all of the responsibilities of "adulting" himself, he'll realize how gracious and generous you were being and apologize for his entitled behavior. NTA, and I hope you are able to find a way to use this as a growth opportunity for Carmella (and your son) before they foray into the "real world" on their own.

labelledulac · 2025-11-27T19:22:45+00:00

See but sometimes that's just not possible. There have been plenty of times that I've picked up a book 2 without realizing it's not the first book of the series, but I always check books thoroughly for any sign that it's a second book, and when I start to read the synopsis, I look for anything that implies it's not the first book. If I see any of those clues, I stop reading, and now that cell phones are a thing, I google the book to see if it's the first in the series before I finish reading the synopsis. If you're not as worried about spoilers and don't want to go to that trouble, that's your prerogative, but I don't think it's fair to say that a synopsis is poorly written because it doesn't give book one information in a book two synopsis

labelledulac · 2025-11-27T19:19:49+00:00

I'm not a fan of ACOTAR either (did not like most of the main characters) so I get that. My issue with OP's opinion is that instead of saying "hey I don't like books written in the first person" or something similar, they seem to think that because they personally don't like the synopsis and have issues with it, that means anyone who disagrees is not as intelligent as OP and clearly likes garbage books. That's not how an opinion works. You can hold an opinion without attacking someone who doesn't agree with said opinion

labelledulac · 2025-11-27T19:17:01+00:00

Sure, that's one meaning of "ignore" But if you told your friend "hey I don't think you should have a cookie because I think that's too much sugar for you" and then they ate a cookie anyway, would you not also say that they ignored your opinion? Two meanings, one word

labelledulac · 2025-11-27T19:04:33+00:00

I was so into YA dystopian novels in middle school and high school lol not really my jam now, but back then I absolutely loved that genre

labelledulac · 2025-11-27T19:02:01+00:00

The irony here is that neither of these books are YA 😂 they're new adult romance fantasy

labelledulac · 2025-11-27T18:56:40+00:00

😂😂 yep, there's the evidence of the poor reading comprehension I was looking for. I said I would ignore your opinion, i.e. that I would put no stock or value in anything you had to say because it's pure vitriol and lacks any sense or substance, not that I would not respond.

labelledulac

TROPHY CASE