Early last year I had an inappropriate conversation online with someone under 16. I was arrested and released on bail. After nearly a year of expecting charges of sexual communication (maximum penalty 6 months imprisonment) I found out before Christmas that because of a couple of specific messages I was being charged with attempting to incite sexual activity (maximum penalty 5 years imprisonment).
I have a good solicitor and barrister but they were unable to get this charge removed. I have pleaded guilty and am sue to be sentenced next week.
I’ve been really lucky in that I have a really supportive partner who understands that this one off stupid mistake, and my employer has also stood by me and may be giving me a character reference. I have completed several courses and attended therapy to address the problematic behaviour that led to my offence.
I’m just really scared that despite all this I may still receive an immediate custodial sentence and my life will fall apart. The starting point for my offence is 3 years, reduced to 2 for my early guilty plea. There are some aggravating and mitigating factors, but I’ve been told if it stays under two years then I have a good chance of the sentence being suspended.
If I do get a suspended sentence I will consider the whole experience a net positive influence in my life as it’s brought me and my partner closer and helped me to address some problems I couldn’t previously admit I had.
Has anyone else been charged with inciting sexual activity as part of an online only offence? If so, what was your sentence? I will update next week with my sentence if I don’t go to prison!

Milo was waiting for Allen in the lobby, standing awkwardly next to the elevators and tapping a foot impatiently. “Ready?” he asked, pressing the button to summon the elevator.
“Well, I’m here, right?” Allen grumbled, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. A set of elevator doors opened, and they stepped inside.
Milo pressed the button for the fifth floor. “Did he tell you what this was about?” he asked as the doors closed. “I asked him for more info and he just kept telling me to get here ASAP.”
Allen shook his head. “Same. I asked why I should bother when I was trying to sleep in, and he just wrote ‘trust me’ and stopped responding. Dick.”
As they rode the elevator up to the fifth floor, Allen considered whether this whole investigation was doomed from the start. There were only four of them, and he didn’t contribute anything to the process like Quinn assumed he would. No one else on the Board seemed interested in the case at all, and his attempts at trying to recruit more users was starting to get on their nerves.
They stepped out on the fifth floor, making their way down the hall towards Sunny’s Deli. The first thing that hit him as he swung the doors open was the shock at seeing Lee sitting near the deli counter, arms crossed and looking down. The second thing was the smell.
Quinn circled around the counter and held out a hand. “I know, I know, but-”
“-the fuck is she doing here?!” Allen screamed, stepping towards Quinn without knowing exactly what he was going to do to the man when he closed the distance.
Justin, who was sitting next to Lee, jumped to his feet and got between them. Allen nearly gagged at the smell as he approached, his lower legs and shoes soaked with shit and his beanie and jacket covered in dust. “Quinn had nothing to do with it,” he claimed. “She asked for my help with something.”
Quinn stepped back, holding his hands up. “I didn’t even know they were in contact with one another until I was called here.”
Allen stepped forward again, but Justin didn’t budge. “Okay,” Allen spat, “let’s assume that’s not horseshit. Why didn’t you tell me and Milo anything? Were you trying to piss me off?”
“That was me, too,” Justin admitted. “I told him to call you here, and when he asked how much he should say about it, I said to keep it vague. I didn’t want you to spending an hour on the bus worrying about her.”
“I’m not worried, I’m fucking mad,” Allen said, feeling his hands ball into fists involuntarily. He glanced over at Lee, and for the first moment saw her eyes. They were wide open, shellshocked. “You’re gonna tell me what happened right now,” he demanded, looking back at Justin.
“That’s all I’m trying to do, Agent. Promise.” Justin returned to his seat, more falling into it than sitting. “Would you like to start us off?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “They won’t believe me,” she said. “You were there and you don’t believe me, so what’s the point?”
“Alright, I’ll do it,” Justin said, turning to Allen. “Your sister started looking into the case herself after the meeting at the library. She reached out to Dexter Hall’s sister, got a lead, and asked for my help looking into it. I obliged.”
Allen forced his hands to straighten out, but that just made him want to throttle the man sitting before him. “You’re not a moron,” he started, pointing to his sister. “When she reached out to you, I know you must have considered telling me about it, and that you clearly decided not to. Why?”
“You know why,” Justin said coolly. “It was a lead, and it paid off- kind of.”
Quinn stepped forward, eyebrow raised. “What’d you find?”
“Better have been valuable,” Allen threatened.
Justin held one of his shitstained shoes up. “We went into the sewers near where Dexter Hall went missing. Lee thought he might have been taking down there and she was right. The three of us- Lee, me and Deb Hall, went down there and found him.”
“That must have been horrible,” Milo said, stepping between Allen and Quinn. “Even with the cold, he’d be pretty far gone in a damp environment like that.”
“He wasn’t dead,” Justin revealed.
“Wasn’t alive, either,” Lee added, still looking down.
Allen didn’t know how to interpret that. Dexter Hall had been missing since November. How the hell would he still be alive?
“You didn’t call the cops, though,” Milo noted.
“We didn’t know how we’d explain it,” Justin admitted. “He attacked his sister, then said some weird shit to us and chased us out of the sewers.”
“He asked if she sent us,” Lee said.
Milo gasped. “Shit, she’s been keeping him alive. Was he chained up or something?”
Lee looked up for the first time, not at Milo but through him. “He wasn’t alive,” she said again.
“Wasn’t? As in past tense?” Milo asked, looking to Justin. “Did you kill him? I get if it was self-defense, but-”
“-I don’t know where he went,” Justin admitted, annoyed. “We got to the ladder and he came for me. I ducked and he was just… gone.”
“He’s not gone,” Lee said, pinching at his shoulder, collecting a morsel of dust. “You’re wearing him.”
“He just into sunlight,” Quinn said, stepping forward. He gathered his own pinch of dust from Justin’s shoulder. “These are ashes, aren’t they, Lee?”
“He was there and he doesn’t believe me,” Lee said, flicking the dust off of her fingers.
Quinn leaned forward, pulling his turtleneck down and revealing a massive scar along the side of his neck, somewhat in the shape of a bite. “I believe you.”
Justin looked to the scar, then Lee, then the scar again- and began to brush the dust off of himself frantically. “Christ,” he cursed, standing up. “I’ve been breathing this shit in.”
Milo leaned in to get a closer look at the scar. “She attacked you, didn’t she?” he asked.
“Wait,” Allen interrupted, stepping between Quinn and his sister. “You’re all just gonna roll with this? Really? Seriously?”
“Well, you may not have noticed, but Quinn’s been acting like he knew the woman these guys were last seen with was the only person we’re looking for. I thought he was just being presumptuous, but maybe he knew the whole time.”
Quinn nodded sadly. “I did, and I knew I couldn’t tell any of you.”
“You thought no one could believe you,” Lee noted, smiling.
“He shouldn’t have. It’s fucking nonsense,” Allen dismissed. Lee opened her mouth, but couldn’t seem to find the words, so he continued. “What next, Quinn? Wanna go werewolf hunting during the next full moon? Should we look for a pattern of missing body parts in case a local mad scientist’s making a Frankenstein? Maybe we’ll get more like-minded users involved in the case if we say we’re hunting aliens.” Quinn opened his mouth and Allen pointed at him. “If your first instinct right now is to correct me about Frankenstein, I’m gonna make you a fucking hashtag.”
“Listen,” Milo said, again placing himself between Allen and Quinn, “we don’t need to believe in the impossible, we just need to rule it out and find out what options are left. Apply Occam’s Razor to this: it’s more likely that someone playing at vampire is murdering men and drinking their blood. Is that what happened to you, Quinn? Some lady lure you home and bite you?”
“More or less, yes,” he admitted. “I struggled, and she nearly tore my neck open. Then I asked her to make it quick, because I couldn’t handle the pain, and she stopped instead. I think it freaked her out, a victim begging for death. She just… left. That was almost a year ago. Then, after Stephen died, I helped his brothers clear out his place and noticed that there wasn’t any blood anywhere. We’d been told that it was blood loss, so I put everything together and realized that it might have been the same woman. I’ve been looking for her ever since.”
“His brothers?” Milo asked. “What’d they say about it?”
Quinn shrugged. “Police were no help, didn’t answer their calls. That was it.”
Without warning, Lee stood up and walked past Allen. “Hey, where are you going?” he called out to her.
Turning as she neared the door, Lee wiped a tear from her cheek. “I’m gonna go buy some crosses and garlic, then I’m gonna go home and take a shower until I can’t smell the sewers anymore, then I’m gonna go online and see if anyone sells Holy Water locally, then I’m gonna listen to a podcast about normal, non-monster murderers to calm down while I whittle a chair leg into a wooden stake because apparently that’s just the world we live in, now.” Not waiting to hear his reply, she continued to the elevators.
“I’ll check on Justin,” Quinn said, stepping away.
Allen turned to Milo, who was rubbing his beard, his mind clearly somewhere else. “Should I go after her?” he asked, suddenly feeling useless.
Milo shook his head. “I don’t buy it.”
“Well yeah, it’s impossible, but she seems to think it happened,” Allen said. “She got a new prescription not too long ago. Maybe they’re fucking with her head?”
Milo stepped towards him, lowering his voice. “No, not her. Quinn. Listen, I trust you, at least, so I’ll tell you something that I probably shouldn’t. I’m a cop.”
Allen stepped back without realizing, bumping into the chair behind him. After the protests and riots that had plagued Portland in the last few years, he didn’t exactly trust the boys in blue. “What is this? You keeping tabs on us?”
“No,” Milo said, quickly looking behind him to make sure Quinn wasn’t paying attention to them. “That’s more of an FBI thing. I’m just a uniform for Gresham PD- and I’ve been on the Missing Board for years, same as you. I’m also one of the first responders who were called to Stephen Mears’ place the day after Halloween. My partner and I found his body.”
“So can you back up what Quinn said about the blood loss?” Allen asked, brushing aside the part of him that didn’t want to consider the impossible.
Milo frowned, then looked back again. Quinn was still talking to Justin, who was violently brushing dust off of his beanie. “Part of it, yeah, but there’s a far more important contradiction. Let’s start with what I can verify. My partner brought the autopsy report to my attention after he got a copy, and he showed me that the cause of death was blood loss, which didn’t make sense to him. He pointed out to me that he didn’t remember seeing a single drop of blood anywhere near the body. I checked the crime scene photos and confirmed. Stephen Mears died of blood loss, with two holes in his neck and no blood around the body. If you want to consider vampires, then it’s basically exactly what a vampire attack would look like.”
A wave of guilt washed over Allen as he remembered how devastated his sister looked when he doubted her story. “So you think it’s possible?”
Milo shrugged. “Either it’s a vampire or someone who wants to kill like one. That’s not the important thing, though. Here’s the problem with Quinn’s story: I did the reaching out to Stephen’s family after he was identified. I spoke to the man’s father, broke the news to him over the phone, something I hope you never have to do. It’s not easy to tell someone their loved one’s dead, and their reactions tend to leave an impression on you. You wanna know what Stephen’s father said?”
“Not really, but lay it on me.”
“At first, nothing. I didn’t know if he’d put the phone down or was just processing it all, but he didn’t hang up so I stayed on the line. After a moment, he breathed deeply, suddenly, like he was holding his breath without realizing it. When he finally spoke, it sounded almost like he was begging for it to be a joke. ‘So my only son is dead?’ he asked, and I told him I saw the body myself, gave my condolences. He said ‘thank you, officer, that’ll be all’ and hung up.”
A dread enveloped Allen like a cold, constricting blanket, making him shiver. “So he doesn’t have any brothers?” he asked.
Milo nodded. “That’s the problem. I know for a fact that Stephen Mears was an only child, so at least some of that whole story that Quinn just told us was bullshit. He’s hiding something from us, and we need to find out what.”

I haven't posted on this site before but I hear people can share their experiences and deepest thoughts on here. So I hope I can find some peace of mind knowing I can share my stories and life changing experiences with the possibility of others being able to relate. Also this story is an extremely long one that takes over the span of a year. So prepare for a long read if your down for it. So with that being said I will begin telling you the story of how one particular guinea pig changed my life. It was March 19th 2022 almost close to my brother's birthday. My mom without my acknowledgement purchased a grey and white male guinea pig and hid him in our basement to surprise my brother on his birthday. When I came home my sister came to me all excited telling me about my brother's gift. I was not in the least bit thrilled cause I knew I would have to pay for it's food and other basic needs. My mom isn't one to care for him do to him being in the rodent family. We brought him upstairs and presented it to my brother. Of course he was not interested in his gift and stated he would have prefered a puppy over a guinea pig. My sister then claimed him and decided to name him Ponyo. You know like after one of those Studio Ghibli films. After doing some research we discovered guinea pigs being social and decided the next day to get him a friend. So the next day we went out to a local pet store to find Ponyo a friend. As we all walked in we discovered a tank filled with black and white guinea pigs. All were short haired but one in particular stood out from the rest. It's fur was long, fluffy, soft, and flowing. I hesitated to get it because the tank stated they were female. However my two sisters begged me to buy her. I asked the a store worker if they had males and they pulled out a box from the back room. There was 4 small sickly looking males. None looked as good as the females in the tank. So after some time I gave in and allowed my siblings to get the fluffy black and white guinea pig. The worker then opened the tank and scooped up the little fluff ball. Its screamed in fear almost as if begging to stay in the tank with it's herd. However, when it was placed in my sister's arms it went silent and limp in her arms. My sister then look up at me and stated that this guinea pig was the one. We purchased her and brought her home. My sister then named her Nezzie after the character Nezuko from the anime Demon Hunter. I rolled my eyes but it's their animals not mine. We then introduced Nezzie and Ponyo under supervised play dates until Ponyo was old enough to be neutered. From that day on I go to work and come home to tend to their cages in the living room. On week 2 their personalities were starting to show. Ponyo was the energetic idiot with rocks for brains who loved to zoom around in his cage. Nezzie was a bit more docile with a bratty diva like attitude who demanded attention and food. One day I turned on the TV and the two would sit in their cage during one of their supervised play times and actually watch the TV. The more days past and both started showing me signs of not only being self aware to an extent but also being complex emotional creatures capable of forming bonds. Before I knew it a month goes by and they started to wheek at the very sight of me. Nezzie especially demanded that I pick her up and hold her. She would melt into my arms and purr when I stroked her fur. Ponyo however hated being picked up and would run from my hands. Nezzie once started to wheek one night until I came over to her cage. She came to me and I picked her up. Turns out she just wanted my attention. If I didn't give into her demands she would sit in a corner and pout, chattering her teeth. She later learns to just bite the bars of her cage non stop as that often would give me no choice but to give in. Over the summer I would have them out in the back porch in a playpen. Once during dinner my family would watch them run around as we ate outside. Soon both my parents started to warm up to the idea of having them around. However soon things started to take a turn for Nezzie. I found an abscess in one of her hind legs. I then took her to the vet and had it removed. She healed up and I thought it would end there. The vet told me Ponyo and Nezzie may not be getting along but of course both were inseparable. Both would call out to each other if separated and would sleep, eat, and play together. Then one day in June I was watching them play in the playpen as usual when my mom came out to talk with me. Now I'm not sure if I told you just how smart guinea pigs are but they are in fact very smart. The moment I turned my back to speak to my mom was the moment Ponyo took his shot. He got her pregnant and I was unable to stop him in time. To make matters worse her abscess came back in the same exact spot in her hind leg. I took her to the vet and had her treated again. Also during this time the air conditioner broke and I had to take the guinea pigs into my room where I had a mini conditioner set up in my room window. Almost every night Nezzie would stand right next to me at the end of her cage to watch me work in my computer. One night in particular was when she was nearing the end of her pregnancy she came to watch me work looking absolutely shit faced. I knew that pregnancy can be exhausting but never even considered it would be a grueling process in animals too. Anyhow her leg healed up and soon on July 29th at 7:30 am her babies were born. I woke up to the sound what I thought were puppy like noises. Funny how newborn Guinea Pigs can sound just like little puppies. It was also during this time that Ponyo was finally able to get neutered as he was at long last considered old enough for the procedure. After Ponyo healed up he was finally able to permanently live with Nezzie. No more play dates and wheeking for each other every night after being seperated. We ended up naming her babies : Billy, Bee, Stella, and Sweet Pea. Now here is where the painful part of my experience comes in. Nezzie ended up picking on Sweet Pea and one day bit him on the face. I was at work at the time so I had to base what happened on my sister's word. I came home and saw him in the corner of the cage whining and struggling to breath. I picked him up to look at him and my sister kept telling me to take him to the vet. But of course the vet is closed during this time. Even so the vet is not skilled to work with a baby this small yet alone one in the rodent family being of this size. I held him in my arms and after some time he died in my arms. I placed him back into the cage so his family could see him. I then began to feel pain like that I had never felt before. I knew I had to bury Nezzie's baby so I took the body away and placed in in a toilet paper roll. I taped both sides shut and took it outside into the back yard with a shovel in my hands. I cried so hard as I began to dig the hole. I had failed to take care of you I thought and his last moments were in my arms. It's was in the dead of night when I buried him and couldn't even look at my father in eye because I felt like such a wimp for crying over something to small. Sweet Pea was the runt of the litter and my best guess as to what happened was that Nezzie rejected him. I later went to bed and when I woke up the next day I instantly felt much better. Seeing the other babies growing and Nezzie being chased around by them just warmed my heart and was able help me heal from the loss. When the babies were 4 weeks old I had them placed for adoption on a Guinea Pig Finder site. The two boys Billy and Bee were instantly adopted together but Stella being the only girl of the litter was having trouble finding a home. That's when I one day walked into the local pet store to ask if I could place a flier for Stella. As soon as I mentioned of a female Guinea Pig a staff member came running out of the back room. She was jumping for joy was she wanted to know more of Stella. I showed her a pic and she immediately showed me her guinea pig herd that she had at home. That moment was when I knew I found Stella her forever home. Of course all adopters had to wait for at least 2 weeks being the babies were still a bit too young. It was during those 2 weeks was when I purchased Nezzie and Ponyo's bigger and permanent CC Kavee cage so both could live together. On September 14th Stella was officially a month old and was ready to go to her new home. I watched as Nezzie and Stella as they ate their last meal together in their cage. After a few videos and photos it was time to bring her to her new family. I took Stella out of the cage and placed her into the carrier. Another goodbye tho this time it's with a happier ending for Stella then with Sweet Pea. I got teary eyed as a drove her to the meeting point where I would hand Stella to her new home. When I arrived to the store where the lady worked I handed Stella over. I then couldn't contain my emotions any longer and began to cry like a fool in front of the staff in the store. I gave Stella my last goodbyes and left as the lady took Stella to her car and we both drove off to our separate ways. Later that night she sent me videos of Stella jumping for joy in her new herd. 3 days later and it was Billy and Bee's turn to go to their new forever home. After a few pics and videos it was time to go. I placed them into a big cardboard box and had one of my sisters with me. We drove to the meeting point and met the new family. They had a little girl with curly blondish redish hair who handed me a letter. I gave the family the two guinea pigs along with some toys and food. Surprisingly I didn't cry or feel sad at all this time. I think it was because I was better prepared for that moment due to Stella. Later I drove home and cleaned out the boy's old cage and took Ponyo back out from is temporary set up and into that cage. I read the letter the girl gave me and it was the little girl thanking me for giving her the guinea pigs and promising to take good care of them. Shortly after Nezzie and Ponyo's cage came delivered at the front porch. The Kavee CC cage and the Guinea Dad mats all came in and soon after it was all set up, Nezzie and Ponyo were at long last able to live together. Both Nezzie and Ponyo started to popcorn and run around their new cage. After they settled in I was able to clear the room of their old cages and actually start to enjoy the company of the two, the way it was intended to be. No more babies and no more vet visits. Billy and Bee were both renamed Cookie and Caramel and Stella still remained as Stella. From that day on I would go to work and actually look forward to something when I came home. Every night I came home and both Ponyo and Nezzie would come running up to me at the end of their cage to greet me. Nezzie often would wheek every time I would walk in my room, EVERYTIME. When ever I would pet her in her loft she would stretch out her body and even roll over slightly so I would be able to rub her belly. Nezzie was a little dog in a rodent body. She had no fear of me or anyone. Tho Nezzie and Ponyo both hate the sound of my car keys. When they would hear the sound of keys they both would run under the loft for cover. It's also around this time when my siblings and I began to teach Nezzie and Ponyo new tricks. After some trial and error we managed to teach them how to stand for treats or food. So whenever it was close to their veggie time both would stand up. If they see me reaching for a bag they stand thinking I'm going to give them treats. Summer has come to a close and soon fall was in air. Soon it was time for for Halloween. My family went to pick out pumpkins and sent me pic of Nezzie with the pumpkins. She looked to cute. We even had little costumes set up for them too. After the mini photo shoot we all placed them back and I gave them Pumpkin to eat for the first time. Both loved it very much. It was a routine with me and them. Work, come home, clean the cage, feed them, give them attention, be on my computer for a bit, sleep, and repeat. Both often try to stick their noses through the cage bars when ever I would eat something. Once Nezzie tried to nibble at my chicken nuggets and I had to explain how she couldn't eat those. When it was their feeding time, Nezzie of course becomes a menace. As I pour the pellets she would try to stick her head into the bag. I would even try to push her out of the way and she would come charging back to the opened bag of pellets. Ponyo only acts this way when it came to the hay. But like all animals it seems that all speak the language of food. Unless I have food, Ponyo would have nothing to do with me. For 6-7 months they lived together in that cage. They had their Thanksgiving and Christmas together. Ponyo and Nezzie were even in our new years photo. So within the year they became an official part of my life and family. I felt so strongly towards both of them. Here I was from not really liking them to out right loving them as if they were my children. After the new years however was when Nezzie started to have health issues again. She one day started limping in the cage and didn't want to go to her food. I had to bring the food to her. I gave her some critical care and she was feeling much better after that. I of course had to take her to a vet but the local one was closed. So I drove her to another clinic. After some inspection they then told me they had some bad news. They informed me that they found a mass in her abdomen. They told me they believed it could be cancer but are not sure as to what it was. My world was shattered at that point. So I drove home with Nezzie and she later recovered from her limping. She magically started to go back to normal after they gave me some medicine to give her for 2 days. A month goes by and all is well. However my car had some repair issues so I was without a ride. I was completely dependant on my parents for transportation for work or anything else. Even so my parents have their own daily schedules to tend to. So as much as I wanted to have Nezzie's mass looked at I couldn't work the time of day to do it. 5 weeks later my car at long last was fixed and I could independently travel on my own terms again. But it was too late. By the time I was ready to plan an appointment to take Nezzie in she later took a turn for the worst. She slowly started to lose her appetite do to the pain she was in. The next day she stopped eating all together. She stood under the loft wimping in pain. So I scooped her up and rushed to vet without an appointment made. Turned out he was booked and needed to make room for Nezzie when he could. The lady at the counter told me I could wait outside as it would be awhile. In my heart I knew today may as well be her last day. I walked back and forth on the outside sidewalk as I waited for them the call me on her results. At 4:30 they called me and told me she passed. I came back inside into the waiting room and they lead me inside one of their back rooms. The vet then handed me Nezzie's body in the carrier. Her body was still warm but lifeless. He told be she passed but my gut told me he found something serious and just had her put down. They gave me a little jar of her hair and two white cards with her paw and nose print. After I paid the vet's bill I began to cry as I carried her out the office. My poor poor Nezzie who I watched grow up, became a mom, and soon my companion was gone. She was one day as happy as can be then less within the span of 2 days decline rapidly only to die. As I drove home I had difficulty seeing the road as my tears were making it difficult to see. I informed the family as to what happened. We first got Nezzie on March 20, 2022 and she died on March 22, 2023. Was this life's cruel joke? Why take her from me just days after she just turned a year old. She had a whole life filled with more love and cuddles to come and life stole that from her. I placed her body in the cage for Ponyo to see. I wanted him to know what had happened. I watched as he tried to wake her up, licking her face, and nudging her. I later went to the store to by tea cloth and rope to bury her with. When I came home I saw Ponyo in the corner of the loft staring at Nezzie's body from afar. I then took her body and wrapped it up and placed in in the outside fridge. I cleaned the cage so Ponyo wouldn't be able to smell Nezzie's scent anymore. The next day I had to go out and on the way back home I picked a bunch of dandelions for Nezzie. I pulled her body out the fridge and carried it to the back yard with a shovel in one hand. I dig a hole 2 to 3 foot deep. I had a cloth laid out and placed some hay on top for Nezzie to lay in. I then surrounded her body with the dandelions I picked earlier b/c she loves to eat them. I placed some new toys, pellets, and treats for her too. After my sister came out, we both mourned over our loss and I wrapped Nezzie up with all her goodies before placing her in the hole. I then placed a cake shaped chew on top b/c of her recent birthday and wished her a happy birthday one last time before I finally buried her. For two days it rained non stop and I myself was clouded by grief. Life's cruel joke. It's was days after she turned 1 and nature decided to kill her. All I felt was my heart drop as I was in total shock. I wanted to die, I no longer had the will to live. for 2 days I couldn't eat or sleep. I kept thinking about my Nezzie. How it's all my fault, and that I didn't do enough for her. As of currently am starting to heal from this loss but it did leave a lasting impression on me. No, it was Nezzie who left an impression on me. She came into my life and made it a little less miserable. As a kid you have lots to look forward to but the older you get the less there is. Less new experiences, less happiness, and less overall optimism. As an adult you see the world for what it really is, when all life is met with the tragic ending of death. There is no lasting friendships, only those you work with in dead end jobs. My life has become dull with no real motivation to push forward in life. I have become isolated without a companion and Nezzie filled that void. I was no longer depressed nor as lonely. Now that she is gone I have to get use to her not being around. Ponyo is all I had left. Tho he is not as affectionate as Nezzie was I still love him just as much. But he needs a new friend as do I. I will forever miss Nezzie and her little licks and cuddles. She loved to lick my face and arms. As I said before she was like a little puppy in a rodents body. Even tho now she is gone, she showed me that not all is lost. Others like Nezzie are out there, just like people. Goodness is as rare as a winning lottery ticket these days. Nezzie was one to show me that. She is a now a constant reminder of just how fragile life within time can be. I learned to appreciate the little time we have and the tho sad to say goodbye, I too will one day go. I just hope I could be as good as Nezzie was. R.I.P to my baby and hope to see her again soon.

Hello all,
My mother and I are Americans traveling to the UK in about a month. Our itinerary includes a day of travel from Oxford through the Cotswolds and ending in Castle Combe. Next day we would make our way to Bath. From all the research I’ve done, it seems like car rental is the best option especially for flexibility and ease. I’ll be doing all the driving, but my mother is worried about driving ourselves, as it is an unfamiliar place and she has phobias having to do with difficult roads (e.g. driving near cliffsides/high altitudes or dangerously winding roads). I’m a fairly experienced driver (10+ years on the streets of Los Angeles, lol), have no history of collisions, and feel generally comfortable at the wheel.
Can anybody give me even a vague idea of what this general route would look like and what to expect?
Thank you in advance!

Hello everyone,
I'm a US citizen and California resident who is planning to marry my fiancee from Guatemala through the I-129F spouse visa within 90 days. My fiancee and I have discussed the importance of a prenuptial agreement to protect our premarital assets, and she has no issues with it.
However, I'm concerned about the potential financial impact of alimony or spousal support on my financial situation, especially since my parents heavily depend on me for nearly everything. I understand that this is a sensitive topic, and I want to ensure that everything is fair and reasonable for both parties.
I plan to consult with an attorney and pay for my fiancee to have her own attorney to review the prenuptial agreement to ensure that everything is legally sound and enforceable. However, I would also like to hear from others who may have experience with this situation.
I'm seeking advice on how to proceed with the prenuptial agreement and a fair and justifiable reason why my fiancee should waive alimony support. I'm also willing to offer my fiancee a lump-sum settlement in lieu of spousal support to provide financial security after the divorce without ongoing financial obligations on my part.
Thank you in advance for your advice and thoughts on this matter.

I guess this is me just trying to find some good in a sucky situation. We fought over a fort of fortune, and we got sunk 3 times. It was rough. I ended up nearly having a panic attack and begging my crew not to go back after we sunk the second time. One question, does that panic ever go away?
But, there were some little victories, at least for me. One of Blurb’s videos did offer a new perspective on a losing situation and it was that you can still learn SOMETHING from those situations. So, I took that to heart today. In this case, I got better at using my sword. I started copying what the other crew was doing with their swords and I managed to get two kills in! Usually I end up with none and I’m the easiest target. Often times as soon as someone boards I’m dead in 0.2 seconds. (I still am a super easy target) But I actually got two people!! Without my crew saving my butt either time!!! I know for some this is really small and probably stupid to feel excited about, but I SAW improvement today and that’s exciting. I’m not very good at PvP. I can hold my own in a 1v1 with an equal playing field and a countdown to start, but in context it’s nearly impossible for me. I want to get better at this, despite how much PvP does trigger my anxiety (probably can’t do hourglass alone because of it), so that’s why this is so exciting for me. Just a thing I wanted to share

Hi! I am interested in majoring in chemical engineering and possibly materials science engineering. While I am still waiting for other schools, I have been accepted into Georgia Tech and JHU so far.
Which school would be most ideal for me to attend if these happen to be my only options by April?
Some details -
Georgia Tech: top ChemE program, I am probably paying $50k a year, must fly since I am far away OOS (and pay for tickets), will probably have students loans to repay in the future
JHU: i will get to pay less than half of Georgia Tech's cost, a few hours away by road, no student loans, ChemE no where near as prestigious as GT
Thank you so much!

Buying a house - total newbie.
Hi,
Are there any good basic guides to buying a house?
I have the opportunity to buy (ftb) in the near future, with a 50%-ish deposit from my parents (grandma's inheritance). However I'm just overwhelmed with it all and don't want to make a mistake!
I have a good credit score, but 1 bounced payment in January, how important is that? It'll be in my name (I'm married) as the deposit is from me, and I have a better chance to get a mortgage.
I have a mortgage in principle, so when can I make offers, do viewings, what do I ask, what do I look for, how do I judge things, just, argh.
The deposit won't be available until at least May, and I'll still have that bounced payment in last 3 months until May... Am I getting ahead of myself viewing? Can I put in an offer with the deposit still tied up in her house (sold STC)?
I'm autistic and confused and overwhelmed... Help me HousingUK, you're my only hope!

SHES TOO FUCKING SHORT OH MY GODDDD
LIKE SHES PERFECT BUT FUCK SHES JUST WAY TOO GODDAMN TINY.
Idk what I did to deserve this, why must god tease me like this. Why must he present me someone who’s nearly perfect but is fundamentally not my type. God, you know I only like tall girls, why couldn’t you just bring her height up a little smh smh
Life is cruel, she’s so nice to me too she makes me cookies and shit and does my homework but I just can’t get over her height

I will keep it 100
This story is not as interesting as it is long. Okay.
To start, this could be nothing. I could be overreacting. I have been with my girlfriend (31F) for three years. We are from different cultures, so this could be a cultural thing. I recently have started spending more time going out with my girlfriend and her friends. She encouraged me to become more acquainted with her friends, but with this comes baggage. She has a very close friend (26/27 F) in a rocky relationship. I'll call her Maribel.
For the past few months, Maribel has been confiding in my GF because she and her BF, David (26/27M), are having issues. On several occasions, she has shared that things "haven't felt the same" and that David doesn't appreciate her and shows interest in other girls. Lately, we have all been going on double dates. I notice that Maribel is nice to me and asks me about my hobbies and interests. Sometimes she engages with me even more than with David, so I have learned to change subjects to not make David uncomfortable (even though he probably doesn't care). I like getting to know my GF friends better. However, I also notice that Maribel and David sprinkle in disparaging jokes about one another regularly. They say it's no big deal so I don't judge.
Anyway, I added Maribel on Instagram. She has not posted a picture in two years.
Within minutes of accepting my request, she posted a selfie with the caption, "Won't you tell me that I'm pretty?" in Spanish.
Hmm. Ignore it. That's not weird, zeuszeus777. Maybe she just suddenly wanted to post. No big deal.
Recently, at a birthday party, Maribel again engaged in conversation with me a lot. I am usually the quietest person when we go out. At the end of the night, she says goodbye and gives me a big, long hug, and says "I'm just a lovey-dovey person!" My GF was completely comfortable, so I didn't react and thought this must be how she is. David doesn't react. He also has no idea that Maribel has been having doubts.
When I first started dating my girlfriend, she told me that sometimes her friends would compliment my looks and make jokes because I am black (stupid big d*ck jokes, of course). They are Latino so they joke about people's appearances, cultures, races, weight, you name it, all of the time. It never bugged me and still doesn't. My GF has mentioned that Maribel "is jealous of our relationship" but later on said she didn't mean it. In the past her other friends have hit on me.
Would it be advisable to be careful and less interactive with Maribel? I do not want to cause any issues, but I like hanging out with everyone involved.
TLDR: Girlfriend's best friend is has rocky relationship. Seems to like getting to know me. A liiiiiiiiiitle concerned with some of the stuff I'm seeing and hearing.

Hi Reddit. Longtime lurker, first time caller. Please help.
2:30am here, and my first ever colonoscopy is in 4 hours. Two points of concern;

1. I ate oatmeal on autopilot yesterday at 9:30am (automatisms suck)
2. I just woke up to chug the remaining 15fl oz of magnesium citrate (I chugged the first dose no problem, so I thought....). Naturally, it didn't stay down this time; I did a full-on Exorcist.

I took two 100mg dulcolax at 1am and think I may have tossed those particular cookies. Just took two more.
I don't have Miralax or other laxatives. Nothing is open near me. My stools are still cloudy, though light and nearly all liquid.
I don't know what to do besides keep hydrating until 2-3 hours before appointment time, including ginger tea, and I guess keep taking dulcolax?
Will I be okay? Any and all words of wisdom or kindness are dearly appreciated. Thank you.

Looking back on the previous chapters a lot of things should have been mentioned. which I would attribute to them not existing
Fang Yuan flys at high speed with thunder wings gu and no one questions it despite having stated that you need many years to learn how to fly and anymore to fly in combat
The cross border nerf didn't apply to sky crane lord In northern planes it stated crossing the border temporarily lowers your rank. He's also enslavement so would he lose control of his cranes? And also lord sky crane just fucks off for 3 years and lets bai ning bing self-destruct. Why did he not attack first gen gu yue? He was so mad he would not listen to reason before.
Fang Yuan had 2 beast gu but never once got a beast phantom till the shang clan(he gets the same boar phantom at shang clan too)
Paths also aren't a thing in Qing Mao. Mountain arc strengthens your battle lower by several times, even if fang yuan couldn't afford them no one else has them either(except bai ning bing who also had a killer move)
The enslavement path was probably buffed Fang Yuan was an enslavement(blood wing bats) path user in his previous life he stated that his entire sect could only support 10,000 blood wing bats. As a rank 6 gu immortal he has numbers comparable to his 19-year-old little brother.. Sky lord also leads ten thousand cranes. Rank 2 bear gu also only lets you enslave a normal bear compared to post qing mao where a rank 2 gives you a king and 100 normals So they probably buffed enslavement past qing mao or fang yuan just had 10,000 bats despite being able to control like 100,000
I kinda understand this one tho If enslavement was good in the qing mao arc then enslaving the wolves would be a no-brainer and ruin the arc
Blood sea spent his time studying low-expenditure methods despite being a rank 8 immortal. Why would he waste his time with his near-infinite immortal essence, unless he knew he was gonna die
Also, it stated that spectral soul demon venerable created soul path but also soul path is the father of enslavement which contradicts the previous venerable being slave path.
If time in a blessed land goes 10x as fast then outside isn't that a bad thing since you have to face a tribulation every 3 seconds when outside your blessed land
Feel free to correct me on the ones I got wrong I'm sure there are some solutions. But in general and with blood cores edits I feel like he often changes mid writing

I've lived in Tugun pretty much my whole life and in my current place for nearly 4 years. I've never had a problem with the plane noise as my attitude has always been - I choose to live here, why would I whinge? Though, the past few weeks the planes seem a lot louder! Where they've never bothered me too much before, I find myself irritated by the noise lately. Its ridiculous, but I've even resorted to hiding cupboards if I'm on the phone when one flies over so I can still hear the other person. Has anyone else noticed any changes or am I having a Peter Parker moment? Would love to know if they've changed the flight plans recently

Usually I’m never on the side of insurance companies. Most of them are downright skeevy and will throw you under the bus to save a dollar.
So, back in December a woman delivering door dash to one of my neighbors forgot to put her car in park. It rolled down the hill and hit another car, which domino slammed into mine. The other car was totaled and mine was damn near close.
The repair process was a nightmare. Her personal insurance wouldn’t cover anything since she was driving for door dash at the time, and door dash insurance wouldn’t cover it because she had marked the delivery “complete” before the accident. I had to use my own insurance (thank god I had uninsured motorist coverage) to get repairs done.
It took 4 days just to get a tow from the parking lot. Then my car sat in the repair shop for 3 weeks before I called for an update and they realized the replacement part they assured me was still made was in fact discontinued. Insurance paid out and it took me 3 more weeks to find someone who could repair it “good enough”.
Despite the huge headache she caused, I would normally still feel kinda bad for someone who just made a stupid mistake. But no, this was deserved. See, even though I wasn’t present for the accident my neighbors were walking outside when it happened. They told me, and they have video proof, that she tried to flee the scene. They ran after her and caught up at a stop sign where she begrudgingly turned around.
She will lose the subrogation lawsuit and have to pay back out of pocket for her own repairs, my cash payout, and the payout for the totaled car. I’m estimating just under $20k, plus fees from the lawyer she’ll need to hire. I have 0 sympathy.

Hi friends. I'm posting this here because as many others say, this feels like a safe space. As stated in the title, I'm facing the prospect that in a couple months, I may need to move back in with my family and it's terrifying me. I'm 23 and in the USA. For background, I've suffered from pretty terrible mental health issues almost my entire life, and I finally figured out that the biggest contributing factor to my poor mental health was the stress of living with my parents (specifically, my mom has always been very controlling, uses a lot of feaintimidation to get her way, and I have lived in constant fear of retaliation for breaking rules because I was often punished for small mistakes, for having problems with my appearance that I couldn't control, etc.). This combined with religious guilt from being raised in a very conservative evangelical environment wore down on me so much that I could barely cope with any additional inconvenience or small problem and I finally realized I needed to get as far away from my family as I could.
Nearly a year ago, I moved away out of state from my family and my mental health has never been better--however, I was kind of stupid and took a position that is basically a full-time, 40 hweek job, but that barely pays over the federal minimum wage because it's officially a "volunteer year." I regret it, but I just needed to get out. The issue that I'm facing is that my job and apartment lease are going to end at basically the same time, and without some kind of overlap I don't know how I'm going to be able to get into new housing while trying to find a new job at the same time (I can't renew the current lease because my roommates are all moving elsewhere and I can't afford the whole rent by myself).
I realized a couple days ago that the most financially stable choice I have is to just move back in with my family and work for long enough to get out of there, but I'm scared that if I go back that I'm going to spiral from the stress of being around them again. I was going to therapy to address some of the issues above but I had to drop it because I couldn't afford it.
Like I mentioned, I have a couple of months to try to figure this out, but my family keeps contacting me to come up with a "move back" plan (my mom is planning to fly out to where I live and drive back to my original state). I just want to tell them I'm not moving back, but without any kind of plan of how I'm going to actually live where I currently am I know they're going to give me hell over that.
Anyone have any advice? Maybe you've been in a similar situation and know of solutions or at least things that I can try that might help with the situation that I haven't thought of? Words of encouragement that things are somehow going to end up ok? All I want is to figure out how to stay where I live now.

Chapter 1
A history lesson
5 thousand years ago all was calm, until panic broke out, as a surge of demons broke through a seal defending our world from theirs. Billions of lives were lost as they shredded through earth country by country. Those who survived in panic shelters quickly ran out of food and were long forgotten as they starved. A strong substance known as corruption came along with the demons, infecting anyone it choses, forcing them to do things they wouldn't do. When it’s done, well, it gets rid of the victims. However, in all the chaos, there were four wizards. Each of them knew one thing, how to harness corruption. There is another element, Null, it seems to be the opposite of corruption. Null helps people, and as corruption is present within evil, null is within good. What these four wizards did is they created things called Gigaverses. They were like boxes, each holding nearly infinite universes. There were 2 main Gigaverses, our world, and the demon realm. All was perfect and the worlds were at peace once more, forever. Legend says one day, the corruption and null that contain the gigaverses will break, causing the corruption to return once again creating another demonic surge. But I don’t believe those fairy tales!
Chapter 2
Lessons In Demonics
Now it’s the year 2108 and things are a whole lot different. Hi my name is Micheal. Today is going to be good, I just feel it.
I step into math class and it seems I'm the only one there until I see my friend Jeramy sitting in the corner. As I approach him he notices me and whispers something to himself, now I can see his whole face, with its usual red hue, I wonder why? “OH h-h-hi Mikey OH GOD I-I mean M-Mike. Y-yeah Mike.” Isn't he so funny! “So Jeramy, how's your family doing?” “Oh them. They're fine!” As I wonder why he keeps stuttering, the teacher walks in, “Great another AMAZING math class.” The teacher rolls his eyes. The class was boring and I fell asleep. I woke up to a sound, “Ding ding” The bell rang and I dashed for the cafeteria, hungry as ever.
The place smells as if you put a fresh baked batch of cookies IN A DUMPSTER FIRE! In other words, trash. But that doesn't stop it from being my favorite place! I met up with my brother Glitch, a lanky guy with blue hair, and Jeramy, he’s slim, tall, shy, and has bright blue eyes, and has slick brown hair. I envy his hair. I sit right next to Jeramy and suddenly he turns red, “Was it something I said?” “Oh n-no your fine my lo- friend, my friend.” “oh oka-” then Glitch had to interrupt, “While you flirt with my brother ima head out.” Okay now i'm really confused, “uh, Jeramy?” “WATERMELON” I decided it’s probably best to walk out.
After lunch us three head to Demonics class. “As you can see, the angelic demon has many wing like tentic- oh hello you three take a seat please, you all can sit by each other in the back as requested by Jeram-” “OKAY GET ON WITH IT!” Geez Jeramy is acting weird. I start to take notes, and those notes turn into symbols, those symbols turn into hallucinations and they become demons and I can’t breathe and I- “MIKEY ARE YOU OKAY!” “JERAMY MOVE, professor we gotta go!”
I burst up, hyperventilating my back muscles and my head sore, as if something broke through. I’m home, Glitch on the other couch and Jeramy cooking something that smells amazing, I always adored his cooking skills. Maybe one day he’ll teach me. “Hey, Mike, here's some soup to help with your healing.” Suddenly Glitch walked away, “I’ll leave you two alone, okay Jeramy?” “Ya Glitch, that's okay,” His face is confident, I think it’s because of his soup cooking abilities. If so, I TOTALLY agree.“
Chapter 3
A very deep warning
“Hey, Mike. There's something I wanted to ask you?” I strain to lean up, “Ya Jeramy?” “Will you, w-will you,”- A loud noise happens “Hold on man, I got to go check.” “Yeah, of course.” As I walk out of the house the floorboards creaking I hear an ominous voice, “of course we have all eyes on him… just, not now.” I walk out to see a tall dude with purple eyes, messy brown hair, a slim figure, and a flannel jacket. “HEY GET AWAY YOU'RE TRESPASSING!” “Hey Mike!” The strange figure waved at me, “Who the heck are you?” “I'm Samuel.” Suddenly I remembered him and I ran up to hug him. “HEY WE HAVE AN ISSUE HERE IF YOU WANT A HUG THAN YOUR NOT THE GUY PAL TRUST ME!” “Geez okay Sam.” Sam is tall and looks to be about 15 although I'm not certain. He has purple eyes and is always wearing a flannel. Suddenly Glitch’s car came into the driveway and Jeramy ran out and pushed me out of its way. But the car parked where it wouldn't hit me and Jeramy started blushing, he’s so funny! “HEY what are you doing here!” Glitch then proceeds to hug Sam and then slap him, how am I remotely related to him? “Where have you been?” “Well i've bee-” “Hey maybe we could go inside it’s getting cold.” “Ya Jeremy's right, let’s head inside.”
I make everyone some dark hot coco, and we sit down to talk. “So Sam, what was so urgent?” “It’s about Ray he seem-” “Hey my friend is calling, can I answer this?” Glitch interrupted ''NO.” “Geez okay.” Sam then continues, “As I was saying Ray seems to have not been at work in a few months.” “If so then why tell us now and not earlier?” “I was dealing with my own problems…” I drink my hot coco and lean forward, “What, problems?” “I've been seeing droplets of liquid spread around, they all have the same shiny dark purple hue. They feel like-” He paused, “Corruption.” The room felt too quiet, “So, anything else, I mean that's just a naturally forming substance, not like it’s gonna kill you or anything. So, what's up with it ya know?” I feel like I've been speaking too much.”It… just feels wrong. Corruption only exists on the plane that keeps dimensions and gigaverses from colliding. I think we need to investigate. I came because all of you are what I consider the only people who will believe me, now ready?” He waves his hands in a circle and creates a rift, a circle thing with a purple outline, it’s hollow in the center and has a blue tube like thing with wind so strong going in, I can barely stand. Yet it seems to only suck in living creatures. “Go on now you idiots!” Sam pushes us in, we're flying millions of lightyears a second, yet we don’t die. A bright, white light flashes, and now we’re in a dark room. “Sorry my powers are weakened, I could only bring us a mile away from the house, we still have a few thousand miles.” “WHAT!? I've only gone that far on mobile games!” I go over and hug Jeramy to comfort him because I'm a good friend, and friends don’t let others be sad like that.
Chapter 4
A fairly short journey
We started our journey right when we got there. We walked for a few hours and Sam decided to stop, “Alright, let's stop here for the night.” We look up at the glowing StingRay Studios sign. It's just as bad as the first time I was here. Sam opens a portal and grabs a small box, inside is 3 sleeping-bags and 3 tents as well as 32 hotdogs. Jeramy then says “Wow, I love this idea, but why hotdogs and different tents? We can’t even cook the hotdogs.” I'm not on his side with this, so I grab a fistfull of hotdogs and shove them in my mouth. To be completely honest… They tasted amazing. Jeramy responds with, “wha-what.” “Shut up you three i'm trying to sleep.” “Geez Glitch that was mean.” “I don’t care.” I have a nightmare of my friends being killed off one by one as I was tortured… I wake up in the middle of the night and see the glowing sign, and I break in through the window. I don't care if this is illegal, why would I? After all, Ray owns the building! I search the building for clues. My footsteps echo through the night as I creep in the building. I enter Ray’s office and see the pc is on. He and I used to be friends. I know that one day, the third day of the fourth month during 2098 he started his business, with the help of me, Sam, and someone else who I didn't know too well. I type 342098 into the password box on the pc. I opened his secret file. Inside is a code, 3974. As well as blueprints for a machine that can grant full control over the demon realm. I go back to camp and fall asleep. I wake up to Jeramy making a ruckus outside. I go out and see a pile of flowers, red tulips, my favorite. I see him pacing and he notices me, “Uhh… Hi Mike! I-I Prepared so-some flowers for you I wa-wasn’t quite sure if you would lik-” I cut him off and put a finger on his lips, “I love it!” I exclaim, he blushes to the point where his face is redder than a blood moon. “Geez are you okay Jeramy?” “I'm fine…” I hug him because I don’t believe him. I tell Sam that Lucy and her brother's house is on the way to the hotel, “Sam if we go there we don’t need to pay for the room. I'm sure she will understand!” I exclaim. “Alright! Guys, let's head out, We’ll stop at Lucy’s!” He yells to everyone. We start our trip. We stop at a burger place to eat and we see Connor. “Hi guys!” He says. We all talk for a bit while eating our food and then I ask a question, “So, Connor. Do you think it’s fine if we stay at your house?” “Well… We only have one guest room and It would only fit two people so one person could stay with me and one person could stay with Lucy, the cats kinda took over the couch…” We nod our heads and hop in Connor’s car. We arrive and I see Lucy, a tall girl with brown hair that has blue highlights. She runs up and hugs me, “IT’S BEEN SO LONG MIKEY!” She yelled excitedly and I pushed her away as Jeramy yelled at her, “HANDS OFF!” Both of them are visibly angered. “So Lucy… could we stay here for a bit?” Sam asked. “Sure! Sam and Glitch can take the guest room, Jeramy could stay on the side of the house with Connor! And you Mikey can stay with-" "Im staying on the floor in the kitchen."
Chapter 5
Lucy’s House
Connor makes us some dinner and I thank him, it tastes SOOO good! To be honest he is even better at cooking than Jeramy. I suggest that we watch tv. But Lucy shuts down that idea and says we probably have had a long day and we should go to bed. I don’t bother setting up my sleeping bag and I just pass out on the floor. I woke up tired. I grab some tea. "You know Sam… this whole saving the world thing, i'm starting to think we aren't going to get anywhere with it!" I mumble. Sam rolls his eyes and finishes his tea. I move my hair out of my eyes and see that Jeramy looks sort of sad. “You okay?” I ask him. “I'm fine…” He mumbles. “Okay! But I know what's going on…” “WHAT! YOU DO!” He yells as he blushes. “Yeah! I think you want to go shopping with me but you're afraid I'll say no!” I yell enthusiastically. I love the mall. “Oh! Uhh… yep! That’s what is happening!” “Well sure! I’ll go!” He smiles and mumbles something to himself. After I get dressed I ask Jeramy “Well… ARE YOU READY TO GO SHOPPING!” “Um… yes,” he says softly. I start up the car and play anime openings on my phone as we drive to the mall. “Do you need any cash?” I ask him. “Nope!” We walk inside and I immediately notice the amazing smell of the food court. We shop around for a while but we don’t buy too much. “Wanna get something to eat?” I ask. “Sure! I would love it too!” I bought us both some sandwiches. “Jeramy… you are an amazing friend!” “hehe… ya friend…” he sounded sort of sad. “Hey are you alright?” “Yeah…” We go grab some coffee, “So Jeramy… this whole time you've been acting a bit strange… are you alright.” “Um… Mike… I've been wanting to ask you something…” “Yeah?”
Chapter 6
Confessions and Old Friends
He looks around nervously and then we make eye contact, “I wanted to ask… if you would go out with me Mike! You are awesome, you have an amazing personality… I love you!” I blush… I look into his eyes. I get out of my seat and hug him, “OF COURSE,” He stands together for a bit, I then look out the window and see…
Glitch. Staring at us through the window. He opens it and walks up. “I heard you two are getting together.” I WANT TO SLAP HIM SO HARD! WHY IS HE HERE! “Anyway… we have an old friend at Lucy's house, I think you should go there. Well bye!” He jumps out the window and sprints to Lucy's house. “Huh… that was nice.” Jeramy says, breaking the silence. “Wanna get dinner?” I ask. “No, I think we should head back.” “Alright! Let’s go… I'm still surprised about this whole… dating thing, I’ve never dated anyone before.” Suddenly he hugs me again, “I never dated before either, I’ll meet you at the car, you can shop around a bit! Bye!” I sat there a bit drinking my coffee. I feel my sweater, it has a history. My mom gave it to me before she died, I don’t go anywhere without it. Now it’s just me and Glitch living at the house. As I get up I decide I should get Jeramy a gift! As I shop around I find the perfect gift! Jeramy is really into mystery stuff. I go ahead and buy him the gift and rush to the car. “Hey Mike!” I put on my seatbelt, “Hi Jeramy, I got you something!” “Oh really!” I handed him a novel about a detective investigating a group of kids who went missing. “Oh my god! Mike, thank you!” “You're welcome! We should probably get home soon.” I start driving, I can’t help but smile as I watch him read his book. He’s so cute! “Oh yeah Mike. I got you something too!” He reaches into a crate he brought into the car and pulls out a beautiful gold lined double barrel shotgun. “Oh god… THAT IS GLORIOUS! Where did you get this thing?!” I shout as I carefully pick it up. “Oh… My brother works at a place where they make guns, I just asked him about 5 weeks ago if he can make me a special one.” “Awsome!” This gift is really cool to me because I collect firearms and ammunition. I smile, and put it in the crate, the two of us walk into Lucy's house. The guys are watching some gameshow, Connor is cooking a cake, and Lucy is sleeping on the couch that was previously overrun by my cats. I have a feeling Glitch told the guys about the mall… that idiot… “So Mikey? Who interrupts their show first?” When Jeramy called me that, unlike when Lucy called me that and I got mad, When he called me Mikey I felt sort of happy in a sense. “Hey hey hey! If it isn't the two of you! Congrats!” Sam shakes my hand after saying that. “Wow… why is there… uh, balloons and uh, cake?” I ask Glitch. “Well! Jeramy asked us to do this once you two started dating!” I think a bit and turn to Jeramy, “Ok… this is nice and all, but what would you do with all this stuff if that didn’t happen? This plan has a lot of holes in it!” He chuckles. Connor comes out, “I AM NEVER MAKING CAKE AGAIN! I am covered head to toe in butter and flour!” I back away slowly. “Hey!” I hear a voice from behind me. “Hello there…” I turn back and see Silver, I thought he was dead after disappearing that long. “And that is the old friend I was talking about,” Glitch says while eating a bar of dark chocolate. I am still very surprised when Jeramy grabs my hand and pulls me to the kitchen, “So… uh… do you want some cake?” He offers, “Sure!” I grab a slice and sit down on the couch next to two cats, I pet them. “Hey Jeramy?” I ask. “Yeah?”

So I want to seek diagnosis but I can't yet for financial reasons ands lack of insurance. I theorize that is eds but I would love yalls opinions or have similar experiences to mine. im 18f my most painful joints are my hips they frequently will pop and then hurt if I press on my leg a certian way it will pop again and fell better. I'm not sure if it's dislocating though. My ribs will move pop and hurt. I've tried to give myself the beighton test and I think I pass but it's hard for me to tell if my elbow and knees qualify. Although I'm not entirely sure if it's related but I have mild scoliosis that wasn't there until I was 15. I also show many signs of POTS and I know it's common to happen in conjunction with eds. I live in near constant pain that tylenol won't touch and I guess im looking for some piece of mind or community.

I have been long fascinated by the research work of a few Professors at Stanford and Berkeley. The areas are ML Systems and AI Fairness. I would love them as my PhD advisors, but as you may know, getting into these two universities for CS PhD is not easy. I plan to apply the next admissions cycle.
Coming from a small liberal arts college, I am not very familiar with the admission process or requirements at such universities. I would really appreciate feedback from professors or folks who are knowledgeable about this.
I am also wondering if I am even remotely close to Stanford/Berkeley PhD applicant profile. And if not, I am looking for a practical piece of advice that could help me make further progress. I am determined to improve myself to ultimately conduct research alongside folks I deeply respect.
Please do not treat the text below as if it is bragging or anything along the lines - that is not my intention at all. Really need some practical pieces of advice.
My profile (briefly):
Research Experience:

1. Undergraduate research on how to make teaching Computer Science (CS) more enjoyable. Resulted in a co-authored paper. Accepted at a regional CS/teaching conference.
2. A GPT-2 based conversational system. Also evaluated BERT, BioBERT, USE, and tf-idf for semantic similarity tasks. Resulted in first-authored paper at ACM-BCB. Around 32 citations so far.
3. A co-occurrence network built on top of a database of research articles. Using this co-occurrence network, we then developed a tool to help find diseases, chemicals, mutations, and genes related to COVID-19. Accepted at JAMIA. Was the first-author. 20 citations so far.
4. Neural machine translation models for improving health literacy. Accepted at AMIA Informatics Summit. First-author.
5. A paper about social determinants of health in the era of AI. Accepted at Health Data Science. Co-author. Around 10 citations so far.
6. I also have unpublished/arXiv manuscripts in programming languages and type theory, graph neural networks, algorithmic fairness, and point-set topology (some with citations)
7. Will hopefully have 3 more publications in AI or healthcare domains before November: one about a data warehouse and NLP system (first-author), another one about literature review in information retrieval (co-author), and one about fair prompt-based learning (first-author).

Work Experience:

• 9-month long research internship at the well-known research institution. Researched NLP and graph neural networks in healthcare applications.
• Sequoia Capital-backed startup. Designed and implemented ambient intelligence and edge computing systems. I was a Research Engineer.
• Currently, I work as an ML Research Scientist in academia.

Teaching Experience:

1. Sophomore: TA for Introduction to Computer Science (intro)
2. Junior: TA for Object-Oriented Programming with Java (mid-level)
3. Senior: TA for Computational Models (upper-level)
4. As a part of my job, I have given guest lectures and mentored several students
5. Also, co-authored MICS paper for making teaching CS more enjoyable!

Serving AI/CS Community and Other Community Contributions:

• Reviewer or subreviewer at ICLR, LREC, Big Data, etc.
• Co-organizer and the Technology Chair of The 1st International Workshop on Ethics and Bias of Artificial Intelligence in Clinical Applications (EBAIC 2023)
• Presented my work at workshops and webinars.
• I also have a YouTube channel, where I make videos about AI and Software Engineering.

Education:

• Liberal arts college, magna cum laude with near-perfect CS GPA. Math honor society inductee.

Other:

• Exceptional ability-based Green Card I-140 approval by the USCIS
• Recipient of 2 Dean's Office summer research awards
• Dean's List recipient for almost all semesters
• Recipient of multiple highly competitive scholarships
• Multiple-time finalist of national math Olympiad in my country of birth (TOP 6/7 was the highest rank)
• IMO and iPhO nominee for the national team in my country of birth
• Gold medal for academic excellence (high school)

I was a former patient of Dr Bisby. I've never been more disgusted than I was as witness to her behavior as well as becoming a target of her sickening need to control. I am here and I have created this Reddit sub to invite others who were once afraid and threatened into silence by a woman who was unabashedly and proudly stated she had a personality disorder (that made Dahmer seemed like a misunderstood man).
Dr Bisby died a couple months after having her medical license revoked in Florida due to working impaired, filling an unwitting patients prescriptions and having opiates and stimulants in her system. She was not competent.
She over medicated me, I trusted her. She caused my body severe pain by not administering Botox correctly and giving joint injections and causing nerve damage. She made mistakes that nearly cost me my life.
She made me feel dependent and made me believe I would die if I did not fall down the rabbit hole of bullshit with her.
Once I drew the line in the sand, my body began to heal. My mind began to heal. I will talk more in-depth of my experience later. She lied. She manipulated. She knew she'd get away with everything she was doing.
There are days I fully believe she TRIED to take my life to only take credit for "saving" it. She was fully prepared to malign my husband and make him an unwitting participant in her plot to injure me. Why did this happen? Because I challenged her. No one challenges her, her words not mine.
With a glare, darkening of her eyes, sweat beading in her forehead she leans forward and said "say one fucking word and I'll bury you". I didn't sleep for months.
The day I discovered she died, I could finally breathe.
I still have severe ptsd. The smells of treatment rooms, people in medical attire, seeing new doctors... my anxiety escalates. No one deserved what her patients went through.

Just finished stranger things but I can't help but notice/think that some of the characters from the main crew didn't really got much character development. Some if them are
Mike Wheeler: Mike was one of my favorite characters in season 1 and 2, I dare say that I felt that he was the main character. I really liked him as a leader finding his lost friend. And then stumbling across a random girl and falling in love with her. He is really caring friend and heart of his team, his decision were plot changing. He is caring friend, after the flied accident with Will he was the one to go to his house to check him. And he was him who figured out that Mind flayer was controlling Will. If he couldn't find it I think saving Will would be nearly impossible. But after season 2 he just become El's BF or that's what I think. Don't get me wrong I really like Milelevn relationship's and I think it's one of the realistic teenage romance. But I think he is just left being El's Bf now. He is still a caring friend and his decision were still life saving in both season 3 and 4. But as a individual he now doesn't have much. I think I really liked him and his friends going on their adventures. He is not a bad character or anything like that but as the heart of the group he hasn't really got much development than the others. And I think if was in Hawkins the group would probably could defeat Vecna or at least go inside the Upside Down with proper planning and probably Max would not be in coma ( it's my opinion).
​
Will Byers: Will not being present in season 1 much had me worrying whether we would not get much development from him. But gladly in season 2 he became the plot of the whole season 2 which I really liked. Him being a spy of Mind flayer was very interesting and his connection to the Upside Down was really interesting. He is not a bad character but remained a kind of season 3. I really loved his character but I think he kind of became the side character for a while. But I have high hopes from him as the actor of Will said" It started with Will and it will end with him" or something similar really gives me hopes that he will do a great comeback in the series
Johnathan Byers: I really don't think he went downhill but I don't he really changed much from season 2. I like him for being a very good supportive brother but comparing him to season 1 Steve who changed so much within that season, he really is pretty the much the same for me. Don't really have any complaints about him but that's what I think.
P.S. I apologies for any mistakes but I am not a native English speaker.

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