I think a better preface would be “I was going to say a joke about the postal service… But it always has a poor delivery.”

Most comments seem to be focused on the logistics of applying and financial concerns. Those are important, but before that I would strongly suggest you evaluate your reasons for doing the program and understand your commitment. For one, interviews and applications will want to know this anyway, and two, these reasons can be tested when things get difficult.

A few insights: school has changed in the last few decades. Things are more lean and there is more expected from students. A big divide if you consider a PhD program is whether it is a researched based (eg R1) or teaching school. A research based school is more competitive and honestly feels like a business sometimes. How many papers can you crank out? Can you devote extra time to helping research professors so that you get better opportunities?

There is a changing (and unclear) landscape of software. Sources libraries and PDF organizers can be helpful. Most the students I know are using some form of AI to read or write papers, and they make edits and such. There is ongoing debate on the ethics, but people are using it regardless. If the precedent becomes writing papers at the efficiency of using AI to structure the papers, the level of expectations again rises.

Also be sure to have a support system in place. Things can get overwhelming and frustrating, and leaning on people when needed will be important.

Start with really pondering your reasons for doing the program and see if a program would fit those needs. And it would be a great idea to reach out to current students at least a couple of different schools to get their input on how the program is. There is only so much you can gain from reading the website. If it is really what you want to do, start looking at the requirements and email the program director or assistant to see if you’re missing anything.

I have to somewhat agree with the author. My experience and understanding of depression is that it is more of a (sometimes very persistent) symptom than an underlying cause. Ideally, we would all have the guidance to deal with depressing scenarios, but similar to dissociation during trauma, our mind defaults back to disconnection to limit the pain.

I’m not saying this is every case, but I do think as a society we could view depression more as a coping strategy, and try to replace it with healthier practices. After time, it takes more time and effort and support to replace those coping strategies, but that is essentially what psychotherapy does.

I think too often in the modern world people tend to just shrug and say “this is who I am,” instead of trying to improve their coping skills and quality of life. Like another commentor mentions, this becomes a feedback loop of depression feeding depression and takes immense support and effort to curve and should absolutely not be shamed.

I also work 3x12s and mostly love having the 4 days off. The downside is being able to do virtually nothing on those days besides eat and sleep. I think one advantage of the 9-5 week is being able to still do a few things more often. It’s hard to practice hobbies and maintain the house with gaps on days that I’m working.

What you value changes slightly as time goes on. Having the more consistent day might be more appealing now. And if you dont like it, there are always nurse jobs that are in need. Maybe there is something in between the hospital and that gig, like dialysis nursing. Worth a try.

As someone who cares for elderly people sometimes, please please fill out an advanced directive (not just a living will). It’s a sort of “if this, then that” for health scenarios. It’s immensely helpful when when caring for someone not well, and can be much more stressful without one. I have had dying, incapacitated patients wait weeks for guardianship or POA-HC to be processed before care can be changed to comfort measures, because they did not have one on file.

Get one from the hospital you would likely go to, fill it out, give them a copy, keep a copy, and give a copy to who you list as a decision-maker. You do not want to add the stress of logistics to an emotionally difficult time.

I think as a society we should embrace death more. Pretending it doesn’t happen just makes things worse when that reality of mortality unwaveringly stares you in the face.

Try Lemma if you’re on iOS. It’s very smooth and has the right balance of features and simplicity imo.

Picture of tents camping. The text shows: “You can’t run through a campground. You can only ran, because it’s past tents.

Side note, is this because the image isn’t loading or for visual impairment?

I’m not sure what you’re using it for, but I use an ebook reader called eBoox. It’s free with no ads, not sure if open-source. I had bookmarks but I don’t think annotations. I like it because it can open my epub, mobi, and pdf books, change the font and font size, sepia and night modes, has many options for how to change the page, and fairly simple UI. The creator markets it as a cutesy cat thing, but that is only present on the initial setup and then it’s just a regular e-reader app.

I have tried a few. Duolingo seemed to be good for making it fun to get interest but a lot of it was semi-random vocabulary. Try the Mango app for more practical conversation practice. It has flash cards that remind me of Anki that are nice for reinforcing memorization. It is free but I think has a premium option now.

Also, Tandem for practicing conversation with real people that speak the language via text, voice message, call, or video call.

Thank you for the list of suggestions; that’s really helpful. I haven’t been on Android in a while, is the Gcam app noticeably better than a stock camera app? What sorts of things would it do better? Low lighting or blur reduction?

I agree about the ROM. I’d really like to have something that is simple and looks to have continued support when necessary for security and other major updates. I also agree about the camera. It seems to be a deciding factor for smartphones. The last I checked the Pixels had excellent sensors but had some camera software issues that I believe were eventually resolved. I’m hoping that isn’t an issue if I’m just using a basic OS.

I didn’t learn this until about a year ago, but fine china is a type of ceramic, similar to porcelain or bone china. They differ in what mixtures they are made of and what temperature they are dried at.

https://www.21oak.com/inspiration/bone-china-vs-porcelain/

I think you have the most accurate answer. The “othering” behavior can be seen in essentially any group of people.

Plus, if you read any of the texts of these religions, I have never come across instructions to shun others. I think people have a surface level of belief and then sophomorically apply it to be “more righteous.” They’re really missing the forest for the trees if they elevate themselves above others.

Not the Middle East, but I remember Hinduism having a caste system that does actually rank people, but from information I got, people were generally on the same page about it.

Can you define what you mean by religious toxicity?

Say what you will, but they’ve always had a stable economy

It’s not integrated into any of the apps I use, so I use a mobile browser. There’s a shield icon that appears next to the notification bell icon. It’s essentially another inbox that shows the reporter, reportee, post, community, and reason for reporting. I still have to manually click the post and decide what to do (ie, remove, ban, nothing), and then go back to the mod inbox and click a Resolved (like a “read”) button.

I guess I didn’t explicitly say it, but that was actually the moment that I went from could exist to must exist. I know it sounds pretty crazy to commit to such an irrational thing. I have a better understanding now of why it’s called practicing a faith, because you don’t just immediately do it and you’re done. It constantly gets tested. So, there wasn’t one moment that just flipped all the way from not believing anything to believing everything, it’s a spectrum.

For me it was ironically a theoretical physics video that made a religious belief really make sense. It was a video explaining how we can conceptualize 11 dimensions that would be possible on the information we collectively know now as humans. The way it made me really think about how truly expansive space and time are really made me think that “that’s not impossible to think that there is a 11th dimension being that has some agenda that we cannot understand.”

I imagine it’s like a child trying to understand something beyond their comprehension but it doesn’t change how true it is, like “brush your teeth because it lowers your risk of gums bleeding and leaking bacteria into your bloodstream and eventually causing vegetative infective endocarditis.” They’re just not going to understand that yet, but still reap the benefits later if they brush their teeth. I think it’s much easier and safer for the kid to say, “I’m just not going to brush my teeth.”

Bottom line is, I think that’s why it’s called faith, because it’s just not definitively provable or disprovable. I have personally had many tangible positive benefits in my life from having a faith but don’t think that should be forced upon anyone.

And I know many people in western cultures equate religion to Christianity, but just a quick reminder that there are many many faith systems that exist in the world.

Homework actually 😅. After a couple of hours, they all start to sound like the cantina song on Star Wars

They probably love the shear speed of it

Pretty amped? Probably said “Ohm my God!”