Random Confessions

^^^ Love this description... Julie sounds independent, perhaps doesn't like being told a book is good but would rather discover it for herself. Even at my advanced age I recall disliking books intensely that I had to read for assignments (anything by Thomas Hardy comes to mind ) but you are hugely patient with her and concerned that teaching/learning goals be reached. I commend you!

^^^ If she's anything like me at that age, an adult finding out that she didn't do her homework and not freaking out is even scarier than getting scolded... because WHY didn't you scold her, are you seething mad and hiding it, are you going to bring it up and throw it back in her face at a later date, are you going to tell her other teachers and all her classmates about it and then they'll all be yelling at or making fun of her for it, WHY WHERE YOU ACTUALLY BEING KIND AND UNDERSTANDING AND TREATING HER LIKE A HUMAN BEING!? (<--not shouting, just transcribing what my thoughts would have been like)

Tl;dr: not your fault, probably the whole education system's fault.

Also, she might hate reading. Junie B. Jones might be the only book she's ever enjoyed in her life. I was like that as a kid: very smart, liked a book here and there, but overall loathed reading anything that wasn't a science or math textbook. The longer a fiction book was, the more I resented having to read it. (Ironically, Harry Potter was pretty much the only book I liked.)

elbkup and hanyuufan5, thank you so much, I feel much better now. I'm going to sneakily check over Julie today, I just hope she's not mad at me or anything. I know she'll appreciate the book once she gets the whole story, she found Sarah, Plain and Tall "some of it was boring, but on the whole pretty fun" so she's definitely going to be on board with HP. I just need to figure out how to do that and not play favorites.

I'm a bookworm by nature (I first read Tess of the D'Urbervilles at age 11 voluntarily, had to read it again at 13 to figure out Tess was raped, but anyway) so I'm usually the overzealous one, I'm always worried that I'm pressuring the kids to like the book/reading overall. As someone who can't stand being forced on basically anything that's the last thing I want to do, but how can you not love (insert book) and aaaaargh

Side note: Two of my students that I love a bit more than others (shh) have almost identical English names, little Miss Julia (aged 6) and Julie

Who do you think could pull off a program to this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyezUnJnYYQ (Imitation Game OST)

You're welcome, Ichatdelune!

invisiblespiral said:

Who do you think could pull off a program to this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyezUnJnYYQ (Imitation Game OST)

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Pull it off, I'm a firm believer that almost any skater can pull off almost any program if they really want to.

But who could really make it shine with minimal effort? IMO,

1st by a mile: Avonley Nguyen/Vadym Kolesnik, Evgenia Medvedeva, Denis Ten
2nd: Rika Kihira, Anna Shcherbakova, Anastasia Tarakanova, Shoma Uno, Daisuke Takahashi, Bradie Tennell
3rd: Any of the top Russian ice dancers or pairs, any of the other top Japanese men

Today's biggest thrifting treasure - dark denim oversized jean jacket, I have already one in lighter shade, but this one is just perfect. Perfection for approx $6
https://twitter.com/NoNameFace10/status/1086639541182713856?s=19

NoNameFace said:

Today's biggest thrifting treasure - dark denim oversized jean jacket, I have already one in lighter shade, but this one is just perfect. Perfection for approx $6
https://twitter.com/NoNameFace10/status/1086639541182713856?s=19

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I love thrift stores! They are definitely full of treasures, and buying secondhand clothes is great for the environment (and your wallet). Some of the bargains I've gotten feel more like theft than shopping.

hanyuufan5 said:

I love thrift stores! They are definitely full of treasures, and buying secondhand clothes is great for the environment (and your wallet). Some of the bargains I've gotten feel more like theft than shopping.

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99% of my clothes are thrifted. My colleagues are not believing that, but I lost the ability to purchase clothes in actual stores , I am addicted to all perks of thrifting. And some vintage pieces that could be found, OMG... I found some core basics and some statement pieces, I can rotate my wardrobe more flexibly, I save a lot of $$$, I have things other women don't have...

NoNameFace said:

99% of my clothes are thrifted. My colleagues are not believing that, but I lost the ability to purchase clothes in actual stores , I am addicted to all perks of thrifting. And some vintage pieces that could be found, OMG... I found some core basics and some statement pieces, I can rotate my wardrobe more flexibly, I save a lot of $$$, I have things other women don't have...

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Same, haha. Many, many stores don't even sell clothes small enough for me anymore anyway, and I can't really afford most of the ones that do. They used to sell good quality, dressy clothes for very cheap, but they rarely do anymore, and I hate wearing casual clothes or things that will fall apart. So, I literally can't buy clothes in most stores! :sad21:

But since I have such an unusual size and style for an American, I sometimes even find brand-new clothes with the tags still on in thrift stores. The thousands of dollars of brand name/designer clothes I've accumulated probably cost less than $200, and are safely taking up space in my closet instead of a landfill, and the profits from my favorite thrift store go to the charity organization that runs it. Such a win all around.

Shoes on the other hand, most of the shoes in the thrift stores around here are in pretty bad condition, so I almost always buy them new... which means that on any given day, my shoes usually cost 2-3 times my entire outfit, including the jacket/coat if I'm wearing one.

NoNameFace said:

99% of my clothes are thrifted. My colleagues are not believing that, but I lost the ability to purchase clothes in actual stores , I am addicted to all perks of thrifting. And some vintage pieces that could be found, OMG... I found some core basics and some statement pieces, I can rotate my wardrobe more flexibly, I save a lot of $$$, I have things other women don't have...

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I also love thrifting. It's a mini-adventure. I'm also lucky to fall exactly in the average parameters for clothing sizes in my country, so there's always plenty of clothes and shoes that will fit me.

Interspectator said:

I also love thrifting. It's a mini-adventure. I'm also lucky to fall exactly in the average parameters for clothing sizes in my country, so there's always plenty of clothes and shoes that will fit me.

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I fall exactly in the average parameters for clothing sizes in your country, too, which is why I can barely find anything in mine.

Interspectator said:

I also love thrifting. It's a mini-adventure. I'm also lucky to fall exactly in the average parameters for clothing sizes in my country, so there's always plenty of clothes and shoes that will fit me.

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For me, it is almost a therapeutic quality to this, to this search process. I love the unknown factor of that shopping.

And I usually side-eye a bit folks who are search for things only displayed on racks in 10 mins and then complain that they cannot find anything...I love to search these messy boxes with tangled clothes

I just learned that Ting Cui's twitter is ting_a_ding and that is awesome.

I answered a question about Carmen today correctly purely because of skating

Yesterday finally ordered 60+ tissue paper rolls in probably every colour & shade possible along with sketching set (pencils and charcoal), colourful feathers and paper for cards. Can't wait to put my hands on all of it - already planned to order paper for sketching and tulle rolls to make cute ribbons for bouquets. Getting back to arts was one of the best decisions last year.

I have already planned 3 bouquets: violet/purplish/pinkish inspired by Komatsubara/Koleto's FD, 'Origin' one made form black, gold, silver and feathers and Jason's SP-inspired from metalized navy, purple and black.

I was just looking up entries for upcoming competitions, and when I saw one of the sets of names, I could have cried with despair.

I'm not going to gloss over it – the guy in the partnership is just not good enough. And because of this, he ends up destroying the careers of his partners. With the exception of one skater, none of his partners have competed since they split with him.

And it is not as if this is a small number of partners – he is now onto his FIFTH different partner in FIVE seasons.

Whilst I am not familiar with his original partner (who he was with for 3 seasons), all his subsequent partners have been really good skaters who were really successful before joining up with him. And I really liked all of them. These four girls had all won medals in Junior Majors, and one of them had gone on to win medals at Senior Majors. So that is an indication of how good they were. And he just couldn't keep up with them. Two of his partners were brand new to the category, and even they were outshining him in no time.

The story of the partner that did continue after splitting with him pretty much says it all. She was one of the ones that was brand new to the category. Her efforts earned her a better partner for the following season, and the scores shot up. But then she became a victim of politics. The coach’s favoured skater needed a new partner, so he took the guy from this promising partnership, and the girl I am talking about became the collateral damage. And she has not competed since.

And I can’t help thinking that if she hadn’t been with that guy I don’t rate in her first year in the category, she could have had 2 seasons with a good partner and established a reputation that would have meant that she didn’t end up on the scrapheap.

So, I am really worried about the future prospects of his latest partner. It’s probably too early to judge them yet, because they have only done one competition so far. But, put it like this: the last time this girl had a score anywhere near that low was 5 years ago…

Oh, how I hope that she can escape him quickly before her hard-earned reputation is ruined!

CaroLiza_fan

NoNameFace said:

Yesterday finally ordered 60+ tissue paper rolls in probably every colour & shade possible along with sketching set (pencils and charcoal), colourful feathers and paper for cards. Can't wait to put my hands on all of it - already planned to order paper for sketching and tulle rolls to make cute ribbons for bouquets. Getting back to arts was one of the best decisions last year.

I have already planned 3 bouquets: violet/purplish/pinkish inspired by Komatsubara/Koleto's FD, 'Origin' one made form black, gold, silver and feathers and Jason's SP-inspired from metalized navy, purple and black.

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IMO, anything you do to nurture your creativity nurtures the rest of you, too!

I make jewelry as a hobby. For Christmas, I got several generous Amazon gift cards and was going to use them for something really practical (e.g. InstantPot) but decided to spend the lot on upgrading my jewelry pliers and other tools. The new pliers are great and have helped to make a real difference in the quality of several current projects. Besides, the InstantPot would have taken up too much space in my tiny kitchen.

Bottom line: it's great to be practical but sometimes practicality is vastly overrated.

skatedreamer said:

IMO, anything you do to nurture your creativity nurtures the rest of you, too!

I make jewelry as a hobby. For Christmas, I got several generous Amazon gift cards and was going to use them for something really practical (e.g. InstantPot) but decided to spend the lot on upgrading my jewelry pliers and other tools. The new pliers are great and have helped to make a real difference in the quality of several current projects. Besides, the InstantPot would have taken up too much space in my tiny kitchen.

Bottom line: it's great to be practical but sometimes practicality is vastly overrated.

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Hehe, I totally get it - I could buy myself a new hair brush & dryer or smth more practical yet I ordered these tissue paper rolls and Italian crepe paper to make flowers

skatedreamer,

There are lots of stories of people with instapots who haven't taken them out of the box because the instructions are so complicated and intimidating. Anyone who really wants one can probably pick up an new/used one cheap. That's if you really want to be confused and intimidated.

I'd say you made the right choice, provided you know how to use the new tools.

(I tried to reply with quote, but the site wouldn't let me. It is very wonky for me today).

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skatedreamer,

There are lots of stories of people with instapots who haven't taken them out of the box because the instructions are so complicated and intimidating. Anyone who really wants one can probably pick up an new/used one cheap. That's if you really want to be confused and intimidated.

I'd say you made the right choice, provided you know how to use the new tools.

(I tried to reply with quote, but the site wouldn't let me. It is very wonky for me today).

NanaPat said:

skatedreamer,

There are lots of stories of people with instapots who haven't taken them out of the box because the instructions are so complicated and intimidating. Anyone who really wants one can probably pick up an new/used one cheap. That's if you really want to be confused and intimidated.

I'd say you made the right choice, provided you know how to use the new tools.

(I tried to reply with quote, but the site wouldn't let me. It is very wonky for me today).

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skatedreamer,

There are lots of stories of people with instapots who haven't taken them out of the box because the instructions are so complicated and intimidating. Anyone who really wants one can probably pick up an new/used one cheap. That's if you really want to be confused and intimidated.

I'd say you made the right choice, provided you know how to use the new tools.

(I tried to reply with quote, but the site wouldn't let me. It is very wonky for me today).

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Wonky for me as well :sad21:
I hate not being able to give likes. It is what I do most here