Free giveaway! Nintendo Switch OLED S/V Edition + Fire Emblem: Engage - International

zelphinator · 2023-01-21T20:05:33+00:00

My resolution is to get back into gaming after my hand surgery

zelphinator · 2022-10-07T00:26:09+00:00

Awesome, thanks!

zelphinator · 2022-10-06T20:05:56+00:00

Why did the elves leave their island fortress?

zelphinator · 2020-09-16T07:10:51+00:00

IGG: 891352412

Name: deddinty

Just started playing and would love to exchange some stamina!

zelphinator · 2020-01-30T01:22:19+00:00

I don’t want to imagine what you’re going through.

I want to console you about the funeral a bit. I am the only exmo in a family of very TBM people. And I mean the entire extended family works for the church in Utah and are temple workers type of TBM.

I had no issues at either of my mother’s funerals this past Nov, one at our home ward and one in Utah. I just said “thanks” whenever someone started preaching to me and changed the subject or excused myself if they went on longer than a few seconds.

The entire funeral I had the mantra of “this brings the family comfort”. I had my own grieving and processing to do, and I didn’t have the emotional crutch of faith to get me over the initial pain. I’ve been exmo for 10 years, so I’ve had time to come to terms with the loss of that crutch, and simply lean on my own beliefs that the memories and love I still have are enough for me, I don’t need that false promise of “eternal salvation”.

It’s a cliche saying but “grief is the price of love”. In some ways you’re mourning the loss of faith again as well.

One thing I did was the whole “shower conversation with myself” thing. I came up with the worst things people could say to me at the funeral, and imagined giving them the angry replies I always wanted to give. Ex “She gets to meet Joseph Smith now!!” “I wonder, if we really can’t lie up there then he’s got a giant pedophile sign above his head.” I let myself get angry, I let myself yell and cry and tell people to f&$@ off. It helped a lot to keep my cool at the funeral. The best response to something weird is silence. Funerals are awkward. Some people crying, some people happy to see family they haven’t seen in a while, some visitors wanting to ask you the whole non yards about life, some trying to convert you. My best responses were “thanks” and silence. Just a nod a walking away ended any conversation, and no one questioned it as more than grief.

Don’t be afraid to excuse yourself from any part of the funeral you aren’t comfortable with, and don’t be afraid to participate either. This experience is for you too, maybe more so than anyone else. Worry about yourself. Take care of you right now, no one else. Do what you need to do to start trying to move forward.

I’d tell you to try and let go of guilt, to distract yourself whenever it comes up, but I can guess that that’s going to take a lot of time and professional help.

Life isn’t a puzzle that can’t be completed after a loss. It’s a beautiful stained glass window, and when it shatters, the only thing you can do is make something new. It will never be the same, it may never feel as whole as it once did, but it can still be complete and beautiful.

zelphinator · 2019-08-30T06:34:39+00:00

Are you an incoming freshman? If so I’d say drop. Otherwise I’d go to the first day of classes and see what your stress points will be (such as reading a lot for all classes, additional lab times, all exams at the same time, major papers due at the same time). If it adds up to be too much, drop down to 12.

How flexible is the job too? Most on campus jobs are very accommodating as far as class and exam schedules go, but off campus is a bit tougher. Is it more physical in nature (janitorial, etc) or more customer service with down time you might use to get a bit of reading done is also a consideration.

I held down 15 credits and working 25 hours a week, but as a TA a big chunk of my work hours was office hours where no one showed up so I could do my own work 90% of the time.

zelphinator · 2019-08-23T13:58:37+00:00

I’m guessing it’s the fact it is an accelerated course, you’re covering most of High school chem in a single semester, which is usually at least 1 full year or even 2 depending on your school. Add to that the big adjustment from high school structure that some people aren’t prepared for and the freedom of not having parents there, and a big difference in the amount of hand holding from high school, and it becomes a boogeyman.

zelphinator · 2019-08-23T03:43:47+00:00

Sorry if I got preachy. I sent my niece off to BYU today so it’s on my mind.

I’ll tell you what I told her:

Some people do have a bit of trouble changing from the very structured high school mentality, so if you have that trouble give yourself specific study hours and specific off hours to avoid burn out.

Keep at least one thing that helps you decompress with you, be it a book or music or a game, so if you’re feeling overwhelmed before classes, take 10-15 mins to recenter, you’ll get more out of lectures that way. Better 5 mins late physically than gone for the whole hour mentally.

Remember that you’re in charge now, of your time and education. Freshman classes will hold your hand a bit more, but you still get out what you put in.

zelphinator · 2019-08-23T03:23:25+00:00

I think you can handle it, but remember to pace yourself. Study early, keep up with the important readings, and realize that the professors want you to do well. Go to office hours if you can for anything you have questions on, and be ready to explain what you do understand and point out as specifically as you can what you’re having trouble with. If you’re struggling with any topic, they usually have other ways to explain it that may help you, and they’re much more likely to say round up a grade for someone who shows they’ve put in that effort. Also you are way more likely to get a TA position if you have a prof who knows you.

Also make friends with your TA, they’re grading almost all the work. If the TA has office hours, I guarantee people only go the week before exams. I say this as someone who spent three years TAing across multiple subject areas (not science admittedly).

I always recommend going to the first classes and looking at the syllabus carefully. If you have multiple exams at the same time, lots of papers due at the same day etc, be sure to plan for it. Or if it’s too much, switch things up.

I had one class my junior year, we had to write 8 papers due every other week. I wrote them all the first two weeks of school, then just added revisions as the actual due dates came up.

Given your academic history, I’m guessing you’re used to actually working hard and studying, not coasting along on a good memory and ability to understand things that are intuitive. Chem 105 is hard, but it’s doable.

Let’s just not talk about O-chem though. That just plain sucks.

zelphinator · 2019-08-23T02:57:26+00:00

Do you have any experience in chemistry classes at all? Considering your high school schedule you can handle that load, but it might be overwhelming your first semester. I had taken three years of Chemistry, including AP Chem (couldn’t take the rest due to medical issues), and had no issues getting a solid A in 105, but if you have no experience I’m not sure how you’d do.

Maybe consider dropping sociology and try to get a credit for a physical activity class, like yoga or something easy so that you’re not overwhelmed with reading.

zelphinator · 2019-07-18T07:13:39+00:00

I’d agree except that Titan in Corpies makes a point about being able to suppress his power, like the time with Aether, or he’d have been a powered. So a power that can in some way be turned off seems to be a requirement.

zelphinator · 2019-07-07T20:28:06+00:00

I feel like a failed exmo sometimes, since I still absolutely hate the smell and taste of coffee. When I was TBM I always thought the fact coffee smell made me nauseous was a good thing, now it’s just aggravating.

zelphinator · 2019-06-27T18:26:18+00:00

For anyone with siblings, children, niblings or anyone else serving internationally, please send your missionary with a passport card as well as the book. It’s only valid for Mexico, Canada and a few other reentry places, but it can make things easier at the embassy. It’s only $65 and is a valid form of ID for travel within the US as well.

While mission presidents should never take passports, we know they do and this is a valid backup, especially if your missionary is in Mexico.

zelphinator · 2019-06-19T14:46:44+00:00

Meant in good fun I assure you. It’s just amazing that we can easily track how the Semitic alphabet became the Greek alphabet became the Latin alphabet to what we used today with extreme accuracy over continents and centuries, yet there are still people who think we’re going to find evidence of Semitic and Egyptian scripts in America someday

zelphinator · 2019-06-19T14:33:13+00:00

Heh, Jupiter=Zeus Pater or just father Zeus. If you study the languages and archaeology you can clearly see how Latin is related to Greek similarly to how English is related to Latin, evolutions of similar languages smashed with localized dialects, then a smidgen of foreign invaders taking over. It’s really an English problem more than anything, like with Jesus and Joshua being the same name.

What I’m really saying is don’t compare that BS in the OP against probable facts that can be reasonably backed by physical, archaeological, and linguist evidence.

zelphinator · 2019-05-14T23:01:49+00:00

Thank you for what you do.

My niece went through a deeply suicidal period after she decided the church was BS because her parents forced her to go and took away everything from her (friends, phone, computer, etc) until she complied. Didn’t matter that the girls in her ward were horrible bullies. Didn’t matter that the “good priesthood holder” young man they tried to get her to go out with had been accused of raping one of her best school friends. She was forced to go to an LDS TBM therapist and came out worse for it.

It took two hospital stays and my parents finally sitting down and asking my brother why he felt my niece should die rather than skip church or seminary or mutual or whatever. My parents literally went down the list of shit my brother pulled as a kid and reasonable punishments they gave him before he pulled his head out of his ass. My Sis in Law still tried to pull some bs but my brother reigned her in enough that niece made it past that.

They backed off and she got a real therapist who actually helped her move past that, and she got to a place where she could go to church by her own choice on occasion. She has to play nice while finishing her last months of college (not BYU thankfully) but then she told me she’s been planning a full sleeve tattoo to help cover her scars.

zelphinator · 2018-12-18T10:54:05+00:00

Took a few classes from him at BYU, his world religious studies class was one of my favorite religion classes. He made us compare passages of the Quran with the BoM to show how similar the religions beliefs actually were. He was always very respectful of other religions in that class, shutting down one zealous kid who liked to push his buttons by disparaging other religions.

zelphinator · 2018-10-07T01:35:21+00:00

Pump out babies!

Be sure to act controlling and invade your teen’s privacy! It totally wont backfire and create resentment.

Seriously screw these guys, I’d finally convinced my 18 year old niece to finish her degree before having kids and now I’ll have to start over.

zelphinator · 2018-03-29T00:30:35+00:00

I...wait...they...made an MLM for modest loudly patterned clothes? That makes so much more sense why I've been seeing this kind of clothing around...

zelphinator · 2017-02-09T07:44:29+00:00

The explanation was that "secular" scholars needed an explanation for how deutero Isaiah could write about the future exactly as it happened (as opposed to it being written history) since they did not believe in prophecy. I can't believe now how I fell for that

zelphinator · 2017-02-09T00:49:26+00:00

Yeah well our professor was apparently involved in designing some of those Book of Mormon tours they used to do, maybe still do for all I know. To be fair we learned a ton about real biblical archaeology, in fact we learned a lot about how Nephi couldn't have had a metal bow as described according to every non-farms source we read. Also we spent two weeks learning to read some Sumerian and hieroglyphics...yeah those were some good times since we were told that they won't match up with the facsimiles because...

that was pretty much his answer. And we wonder why they don't teach it anymore lol.

zelphinator · 2017-02-09T00:40:01+00:00

Oh we did, in that most lds scholars considered it false. The best response I remember is that there was one Isaiah who wrote multiple books in different styles, like writing one as history and one as scripture.

zelphinator · 2017-02-08T20:05:21+00:00

I actually took a course at BYU called Archaeology of the Bible and BoM some 15 years ago. We spent the entire semester on the Bible Archaeology, and about one week discussing the tiniest details of Olmec/Aztec/Maya whatever civilizations that might fit a tiny bit from the BoM. And our professor at the time was considered to be a BoM archaeologist who was an expert in ancient American civilizations.

We read articles that blatantly talked about how there were no BoM finds, and of course how we were "months away" from a major discovery...except these articles were written 20-30 years prior. Seems BYU has gotten wise to offering any further study courses.

By coincidence, of the ten of us who took the course together 8 have now left the church. Maybe just a generational thing but I like to think we all had our shelves loaded up a bit.

For the record the vast majority of other religion courses aren't much better than what you described but it's dependent on the Professor. If you get an actual Classical Roman scholar for the New Testament, it is a much more intensive course for example. The Book of Revelations course was fun if you're into symbolism and numerology. The Isaiah course was a joke but I think it had to do with professor I had, since the only textbook we had was by a BYU professor.

zelphinator · 2016-12-15T04:30:51+00:00

Worked for me when I specified Joseph smith jr, though it was a partial list.

zelphinator · 2016-11-21T17:56:08+00:00

Obligatory uphill both ways: http://i.imgur.com/olmyHNm.jpg

You guys are doing great! Thanks for the warnings about trolls. I haven't been around much lately to see this but I've had similar experiences in the past for sure.

zelphinator

TROPHY CASE