• Sanya@lemmygrad.ml
    21·
    16 days ago

    While I was coming home today, I was stopped by a couple who asked me to buy something to eat for them, since they were homeless and hungry. We went to a minimarket and they brought some bread, cookies, tuna, etc. to the cashier. I used all the money I had to buy them that stuff. It wasn’t that much, yet it costed a lot- I had to use all the money I had with me, 22 euros! (Initially I couldn’t even afford it, so they had to place a few things back) Were things always this pricey?

    Hopefully it helped them a bit.

  • SlayGuevara@lemmygrad.ml
    19·
    12 days ago

    I got metal shrapnel in my eye today and it had to be drilled out by a doctor. Sounds horrific but at my job it was a badge of honor so in a dumb ass way I was looking forward to it too. I swear these people are just build different.

    Still no luck in joining a political org. I feel like it would be a bit of a waste to join a Trot or Ortho leaning org that operates as a niche. On the other hand it might be the most serious option. Maybe I should just start with the union.

    I also shoot my shot with someone way out of my league and it somehow worked and now I have to think about when I will drop that I also have dozens of Star Wars extended universe books.

  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmygrad.ml
    18·
    16 days ago

    Have a great week everyone! Taking good notes for your studies is a fantastic way to both internalize what you read, and to create quick reference points for review.

    As always, communism will win.

  • SlayGuevara@lemmygrad.ml
    16·
    15 days ago

    Important left win in The Netherlands where the new government will cancel the budget cuts on social securities. This is after quite some time of union actions.

    I hope for the love of God the union will spam about this.

  • SlayGuevara@lemmygrad.ml
    14·
    16 days ago

    There’s a shocking amount of trans people on dating apps who have centrist or even right wing politics for some reason

    • ?Geektragedy@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
      10·
      15 days ago

      I’m no expert but it seems to me that folks that have never struggled for primary or secondary needs (middle class and up) can easily fool themselves into believing that the tertiary needs that they had fight for are more important than the primary and secondary needs of those less fortunate than themselves. And given that wealthier voices are always the most amplified their material/philosophical culture draws adherents to it.

      It then can become a cudgel to pummel global south countries besieged and sanctioned by Western Hegemons struggling to provide for the primary and secondary needs of their people never mind educating them to be more tolerant.

    • Serial Designation N@lemmygrad.ml
      9·
      15 days ago

      Unfortunately it’s to be expected, fascism tends to prey on the vulnerable and the isolated! It’s what the entirety of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” is about, in fact. It’s understandable why some people would pick it up, they’re told it would ease their pain and get them on their feet again. That’s where it’s our job to help them see it, and to give the support necessary for the trap to stop working.

  • SlayGuevara@lemmygrad.ml
    13·
    15 days ago

    There is something very healing about working outside between plants all day. Hard, honest work with your comrades. Bullshiting because we are all physically tired at the end of the day. Going home and eating a good meal, enjoying the sunset. Finding out that shooting your shot with someone worked. Life really is worth living from time to time.

  • LeninZedong@lemmygrad.ml
    12·
    14 days ago

    I am in a bit of a slump and I am just spending my days just playing games and watching vids (no visible job opportunities besides one that would be a horrible option and no college, plus I have debt).

    • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
      11·
      14 days ago

      I suggest taking on a project, even if it isn’t monetizable and doesn’t mean much of anything. One way to do that if you’re big into games, is to make a mod for a video game; ideally one that has established resources/tutorials for doing so and isn’t getting regular updates that will break what you make, such as Fallout New Vegas.

      Anything at all that you can point at and say “I made that” or even “I contributed to making that” (if it’s collaborative) can be a help for motivation, self-esteem, and building confidence in your abilities. And it gives you a goal that can feel more motivating than playing through a video game. Not that there’s anything wrong with games, but since you describe it as a slump, that makes me think you’d especially benefit from having a project that you care about.

      • LeninZedong@lemmygrad.ml
        4·
        11 days ago

        Hmm, thanks for the interesting idea, but I have none of the technology, money, or know-how to mod games (maybe I could do something like try to learn a language without burning out in a day). I hope I can come up with some idea soon.

        • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
          6·
          11 days ago

          Language learning apps might help with that, depending on the design. Many of them are designed to encourage incremental, daily practice, rather than doing a ton at once. They have their limits for teaching language, but for introductory or casual learning, they can do something.

            • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
              4·
              10 days ago

              Indeed. I ranted myself about Duolingo at one point on here lol. Honestly, my biggest reason against them off the top of my head is just that it’s not good pedagogy/teaching. They are popular because they did gamifying well to hook people, they did marketing well, they were early in the market when language apps were just getting started as a thing. But the pedagogy of how they did it is mediocre at best and was largely excusable in the beginning when nobody had a clue how to try to teach a language through a gamified app, but by this point, speaks to capitalism’s interest in cornering a market and then turning it into profit. What little interest they may have had in the pedagogy of it at points is now lost to making money.

              The major turning point for me was years ago when they introduced the “health system”, where getting an answer wrong lost a heart, which IIRC recharged each day but could leave you with none left to keep learning that day if you weren’t a paying subscriber. Which is not only not good pedagogy, it’s actively terrible for learning in order to push people to pay up. And it showed me where their priorities were at.

                • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
                  4·
                  10 days ago

                  Like better ways to learn a language than through an app or better apps?

                  For the first one, I’m still trying to figure that out myself. Principles that stand out to me are: believing that a language can be your own (as opposed to something you are simply memorizing/borrowing from foreigners) and learning things in context (as opposed to memorizing lists of words in isolation and never putting them into practice). These two together make a strong case for cultural immersion of actually living in a region whose language you want to live, but obviously that’s not an option for a lot of people. There are the traditional methods like learning in classrooms and getting help from tutors, but these may not combine well with low money, low time, or both, which is probably why apps are popular.

                  For the second one, I don’t really have any single one that I love. I’ve tried many different language apps and consistently run into some kind of issue, whether it’s the cost being too high, or the design having elements I don’t like, or the app creators making changes that (in my view) make it worse to use. That last one happened to me with HelloChinese. I do believe still that it has a lot of good learning material on it, but they changed the UI at some point to make it more like Duolingo’s and literally made it harder for me to get through the lessons as a result because of the attention-grabbing design of the progress bar at the top. I’m probably more sensitive than some when it comes to that though, on account of distractability. I’d still recommend it to people who want to learn Chinese, so long as they can afford the monthly cost.

                  In general, the best bet is looking for an app that specializes in teaching a single language. Apps that boast of being able to teach you 10-30 languages or whatever, are probably doing a lot of cutting corners, copy/pasting, and might be okay if you’re English learning Spanish or something, but are likely going to suck badly for languages with dramatic differences from your native one.

                  I’ve also experimented with apps that use AI for conversation practice. One example is TalkMe, which is okay. The catch is apps like that may have the reverse problem that the gamified language course apps have; if you have no familiarity with the language yet, they aren’t giving you much of a foundation to learn on. Whereas an app like HelloChinese tries to give you more of a guided course foundation to work with.

                  For languages like Chinese or Japanese where you may want to be practicing writing Characters or writing Kanji, there are apps like Skritter (though I don’t like the cost of it myself just for that one thing). More recently, I found something called ScriptPad, which is a pretty cheap one-time purchase for each language version of it you want to have and has practice for that kind of thing. So I got the Chinese version of it and have used it some to practice with writing/vocabulary.

    • n1bricsfan@lemmygrad.ml
      10·
      13 days ago

      I’ve found it helps a lot to be overly kind to myself during those times. Treat yourself like you would a friend who’s going through that. As much as it sucks, under capitalism it’s a totally normal situation to be in and there’s a lot of us out there experiencing the same thing - you aren’t alone. I’m in a similar spot myself.

    • Ember_NE@lemmygrad.ml
      10·
      14 days ago

      Knitting doesn’t need to be expensive and fills the same “play games and watch videos and zone out for a bit” space for me

        • Commiejones@lemmygrad.ml
          7·
          12 days ago

          If you find a game where you don’t have to do much thinking it can be nice to listen to audio books wile playing games.

      • LeninZedong@lemmygrad.ml
        3·
        11 days ago

        Hmm, knitting seems interesting (though I do not have any of the tools so I would have to ask parents for it), even if it is not something I am interested in right now. Maybe I could take on some other type of project…

        • Ember_NE@lemmygrad.ml
          5·
          11 days ago

          Well, knitting needles and cotton is pretty cheap usually if you want to look into it. Plenty of free recipies on Ravelry.

        • Commiejones@lemmygrad.ml
          5·
          11 days ago

          Back in my birth country we used to get a few months of unemployment insurance payouts after losing a job. You’d get paid almost as much as you’d take home when working and all you had to do was confirm you didn’t have a job. We called that period “funemployment”

  • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
    12·
    16 days ago

    I don’t particularly like my life. Not sure I ever have for longer than a few months at a time (maybe in childhood? chronic stress since then makes it hard to even remember most of my childhood). And then I wonder why I’m depressed.

    • Commiejones@lemmygrad.ml
      10·
      15 days ago

      Have you considered running away and starting over? I did it and it really helped me. I actually think about getting old now. My memory of events is still kinda fucked but I think that may just be my ND.

      • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
        11·
        15 days ago

        Glad it helped you. In a way, I have thought about it many times and wanted to, but it’s complicated (emotionally, even if technically not that complicated in concept depending on how one looks at leaving). The short version is dealing with people who are chronically angsty/anxious about just about everything, who are also very extroverted about it and feed into each other’s angst, and then more recently, one of them has stage four cancer, so it means all the pre-existing family dynamics that were a problem become amplified. In my view of it, a lot of codependency going on, including some of it on my end from getting ensnared in the dynamic in my own way over time. And because of how the situation is now, there is legitimate reason to be over the top in a way; though still, not reason to be over the top about every little thing. I’m pretty sure there is some undiagnosed ND in the picture that is not just me (in my case, ADHD - in theirs ADHD in one and autism spectrum in another). So you can imagine angsty chronic anxiety boomers with limited coping mechanisms and no diagnosis to ground them playing off each other’s ND, mixed with some good ole fashion internalized patriarchy dynamic, setting the stage for a whirlwind of people who cannot chill to save their lives and seem to have a hard time with the concept that they can’t handle life with just themselves, calling upon me (because it’s convenient), calling upon other siblings as logistically feasible (less convenient), and ending up in and out of ER and hospital when crisis arrives.

        I could say some of it’s my own fault for not doing more to become independent and break off from it before reaching a medical crisis like this. But I also probably would have had a much easier time reaching that point if I hadn’t internalized so much of their anxiety of day to day things. Anyway, like I said, complicated and I try not to get too specific in getting into here even though I sometimes want to, so that I’m not revealing too much about my personal life.

        • Commiejones@lemmygrad.ml
          11·
          15 days ago

          Sounds like you are in a “time of monsters” and a qualitative change is coming. Hang in there. I hope you spot a good footing to land on when things change.

        • NoOtherWay@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
          6·
          14 days ago

          Damn, same thing here. Except that I had moved out to study from a good university, but had to come back because I didn’t get a job. I have ADD and suspect Autism as well.

  • TabularTuxedo@lemmygrad.ml
    11·
    16 days ago

    I feel a bit bitter that brazilian high school education kind of crippled my ability to write anything that isn’t ENEM essays (ENEM is a national exam that happens once a year. ENEM essays are 30 lines long).

    I’m trying to learn how to research and write academic papers and I fell in love with how they structure paragraphs and arguments.

  • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
    11·
    10 days ago

    I have mixed feelings about romance. Sometimes I’ll sort of forget about it like it doesn’t even matter. Sometimes I’ll really yearn for it hard like it’s a huge deal. But I don’t know how much of the 2nd one is cultural influence of putting romance on this huge pedestal as like the best thing since gluten-free sliced bread. Like a good partnership would probably help me a lot, but it’s also not going to solve my problems on its own and a bad one could make them worse. I think the more important thing, probably, is to unfuck my brain with regards to attachment more generally. I tend to have that thing going on, I forget the exact term, where you seek attention and then want to run when you actually get it. Fearful… anxious… something or other. I could just look it up. Anyway, I have come a long way in emotional stability and self esteem I think, but it could still be a lot better and unfucking attachment is probably a significant part of that so that attachment is a source of security and stability instead of a combination of desiring it and fearing it. My gut tells me I’d actually have a pretty easy time having long-term relationships, platonic or otherwise, if I didn’t have the fear/avoid thing in the mix, along with general insecurity about my capability to maintain relationships over time and distance due to my distractability and sudden dropoffs of interest; but then, judging relationship maintaining with distance as a factor is pretty unfair, as most human beings throughout history did not have the internet and such, they could just know the people who were right there and not have to think about it beyond that. My gut also tells me I need to eat healthier and that holding onto anxiety is bad for its digestion. It’s not even speaking in english. I don’t know what language the gut uses. Communicates through “this feels good” and “that feels bad” I guess.

    • Commiejones@lemmygrad.ml
      8·
      10 days ago

      I have mixed feelings about romance. Sometimes I’ll sort of forget about it like it doesn’t even matter. Sometimes I’ll really yearn for it hard like it’s a huge deal.

      I believe this is the orientation called “Aro-spike.”

  • 3scene@lemmygrad.ml
    11·
    13 days ago

    I’ve been struggling with work, with an uninspired boss and an unguided boss’s boss. I had so much energy when I started this role but I question myself and what I can achieve here. It occupies so much of my time and energy and this is all happening when I know we are running towards climate disasters with no action, and with people ‘enjoying’ 30c weather at the end of September. Don’t look up.

    And then we have the utterly untrustworthy US Americans that openly pillaging everything and ““centrist”” governments debating if they can form a fascist government with the far right all over europe.

    Fight the fight comrades, we have much to do.